Whispers of the Outer
by Reva Kenai
Summary: Taylor Hebert was an ordinary girl whose resolve was tempered through abuse and betrayal, wishing to become capable of defending people against these and much more: a Hero s mettle which would face alien eyes and a sad smile.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** I don´t own the awesome web serial Worm by Wildbow; though there are a few OC in this fanfiction, all of which are of my own creation. Also this is entirely a work of fiction; any real person names, companies, events or places mentioned in this story are just coincidences and/or not meant to offend or make any kind of realistic description.

Additionally; this contains spoilers from the web serial Worm, although this story diverges from canon very early. It could be considered an AU.

Here´s my new awaited fanfiction; here hoping you guys dig it!

\- " Speaking aloud and normally"-

\- _Memories / dreaming / reading written or typed text _-

\- ' _Thoughts _'-

\- " **_Very deep and incorporeal voice_** "-

\- _'Accurate interpretation of the sent or received broadcast [Broadcast of underlining thought]'_ ˃˃

**Chapter 1: Contact**

(We are (Not) alone – You (Won´t) notice it – I´ll (Try to) accept the consequences ˃

April 14, 2005

.

_'Shattering window which will show me these new planes, new worlds. Reasons outside foresight ensures the coming reign.'_ Her unblinking eyes remained fixed upon the chaos beneath, from her position above a massive floating fortress. It was noteworthy how it couldn´t be brought down and sunk into the Atlantic Ocean, despite the onslaught she was bringing upon it.

These thoughts were not really a prediction of fates but a reality on their own since her sight only simulated what had already transpired and what would happen in the future, but never the ephemeral instance of the present.

The angelic being hovered thousands of feet in the sky; its translucent and bright body seemingly lifted off by majestic asymmetrical wings surrounded by a halo of diverse high-tech looking guns. These weapons were the ones currently firing at the stronghold.

These shots were weakening the shields protecting the structure but wouldn´t cancel them altogether.

With that being taken care of, the awe-inspiring monster also made sure that her horrifying and mind-altering song resonated deep within the skulls of all the defenders in place. Including the three parahumans whom were lauded as being the most powerful in the planet, who where desperately trying to get past her telekinesis.

They had come at just the right time to obscure her plan. Make the right members of humanity believe that she would be cornered during a precise moment

_'The rupture is imminent. Enabler´s path has been set and locked_', she saw the soon to be turbulent drowning of the man known as Andrew Richter, far towards the North-East. Leaving its 'creation' alone and without what would be a critical insight to face what would come, nor enough preparations to be ready and intercept it in time.

Suddenly and after a few minutes a vaguely dragon-shaped aircraft could be seen on the horizon, breaking the sound barrier and quickly approaching the stronghold. The arrival of the remotely controlled robot was coordinated together with the staggered disengagement of the entirety of the Triumvirate, who had been previously attacking her and even managed to tear apart one of her smaller wings.

Its/Her face revealed nothing while it turned to look at the remote-controlled suit of the would-be parahuman who would unknowingly help to create so many paths to reach the fated goal.

A black rocket, the product of tinker engineering, launched forth with a rumble. It was followed by a veritable rain of the more standard sort, and the Endbringer moved in response. Her wings started to shift, almost like a blooming iridescent rose. There, previously hidden but strapped upon her back, was an unidentified disk-shaped device.

All those watching shared in an unheard, almost breathless, gasp.

Would their efforts finally be rewarded with the fall of the angel?

The missile struck its target, resulting in a massive and deafening implosion which shook the entire fortress. It was a moment which would hit morale hard throughout the world because it proved that the Endbringers were capable of unforeseen levels of preparation and foresight.

_-Excerpt from A World History by Carl Macfarlane-_

_In the year 1982 the individual known as Scion appeared over the Atlantic Ocean, heralding the appearance of parahumans or people whom suddenly found themselves capable of supernatural feats._

_At first parahumans were regarded not unlike urban myths, but soon they revealed themselves to the public through the actions of those whom used their new abilities to take advantage of society, unconcerned by the law. They became known as "villains", and their reveal would be followed by that of "heroes" willing to help and stop them._

_The immense individual power that these abilities could bring forth soon ended up destabilizing civilization itself and threatening the world order._

_In the years that followed a "Triumvirate" of heroes was founded; and also the "Protectorate" is formed by governmental order as a non-parahuman organization with multiple branches and response teams tasked with the duty to help keep the activities of parahumans, or capes, in check._

_The first of the titanic monstrosities known as the "Endbringers" was sighted on Marun field, Iran on 1992. It would eventually be named Behemoth._

_Two other Endbringers, Leviathan and the Simurgh, followed in its wake. Each of them attacking cities and other important targets every few months, usually causing massive casualties and furthering the world-wide degradation of civilization on all levels._

_Seemingly invincible, not even the parahumans could do enough against them, and often had to resort to just try to mitigate the damage resulting from these attacks._

.

The same day. Minutes before sunset.

The joint Protectorate Headquarters located a short distance from one of the islands furthest to the north-west in Las Bahamas had suffered a devastating Endbringer attack.

This was serious and bad news on its own, however it almost paled in comparison to the *scarring* of the heavens in a number of places across the globe. Numerous strange and gaping voids were spread far and wide on the firmament, as if someone had torn patches of the sky itself. The biggest reported one being directly above the site of the battle against the Endbringer.

Legend stood on a beach overlooking the half-destroyed tinker-made fortress on the sea, the mantle of his electric-blue costume flowing with the wind. Behind him there were remains of preserved huts made by the Lucayos, the original natives who had lived on these islands a long time ago.

_'The interaction between Dragon´s new weapon and the Simurgh´s trinket shouldn´t have happened. Not only did it protect that monster but also almost ended up destroying this base. It´s going to take at least a year to repair it_'

Looking to his side, he noticed his old-friend Eidolon standing silently and looking at the sky, _'probably also brooding about the results of this_'.

Dragon´s weapon was supposed to leave the Simurgh unable to gather sunlight and radiation anymore, and without any means of recovery her eventual destruction would have been guaranteed.

Placing a hand over the shoulder of his teammate in the Triumvirate to distract him from his reverie, Legend met his stare with a somewhat reassuring half-smile, "Despite what happened, it´s going to get better you know. We were so close to finally killing her that she specifically had to design a counter. You see? Despite all the projections _it can be done_".

Eidolon was silent for a moment, thinking things over. They had had few losses, and there were methods which could be used to recover the base. Finally, he nodded. "I think you're right. Thanks." His fists clenched and he looked upwards again. "At the very least, I suppose this means they have vulnerabilities of their own."

_'Even if it turns out I´m the only one who can do it'._

The two heroes shared in a long silence, together gazing upwards. The only sound that could be heard was the noise of the waves which came crashing upon the distant rocks, signaling the rising tide.

Neither spoke a word about what the Simurgh had done. They tried to not even think about that, even though they were currently looking right at the result. An ethereal sight that was sure to puzzle and worry plenty of people for a very long time.

It was Legend who again broke the silence with a barely audible sigh, "Well, as the British say .. the battle rages on".

This elicited a snort from Eidolon, "Deep Purple? Really?".

Both heroes stood there below a sky unnaturally marred by a massive and almost elliptical dark blur. It was truly unnatural, a presage of darkness to come for those who were the slightest bit superstitious.

It was filled with countless streams of jade-green and dark-blue flames dancing with wave-like and counter-clockwise motions, and little by little they were reaching outside the void and into their world.

.

July 27, 2006

Samantha Barnes was a stern-looking woman who had had to accompany her husband from the Bay to Boston for a firm-related meeting that would take place in two days' time. Fortunately, her sister had been available to take care of their precious daughter back at the Bay; she would have to make sure that Emma kept to her schedule and did her homework, no matter how much she complained about being tired from her modelling classes.

Currently, she and Mr. Barnes were staying at a nice but not too expensive hotel; and she had gone out to do some shopping at the nearest mall while her husband had remained at their room, quite busy with work-related calls.

She felt she had spent too much time there - it was already nearing 5:00 p.m.

Glad that she had decided to wear her coat and long skirt to help her deal with the cold and chilling winds that were so common on this city, she went out into the streets.

Carrying two shopping bags in each hand was a little uncomfortable; however she considered she had been lucky that there were still a few other people walking on the streets going about their business. Though, it only took a matter of minutes for this to start to change, for the streets gradually became more deserted. A little worried, she decided to hurry the pace.

The street that she found herself in after a while was near one of the seedier-looking neighborhoods that she had seen in the area; and she decided to turn around and look for a better route back to the hotel. She stopped when she felt a very sharp object pressing against her lower back.

"Walk"- the gruff voice that whispered behind her almost resembled a growl.

_'Oh no! Am I being mugged? Someone, anybody PLEASE HELP ME!'- _a cold sweat started to form on her forehead, and the shiver caused by the sudden situation had almost fully paralyzed her on the spot.

"Didn´t you hear? Walk! Now!", the thug repeated behind her. She turned her head, catching a look at his ratty and hooded cloak, before he started to lead her towards the near side-alley.

She had no idea what he wanted and she only wished for help to arrive. Utterly helpless, she could only keep walking with the man. He discretely held the military knife against her back, and her eyes desperately looked for help or at least for someone to notice what was happening.

She was taken a good distance into the poorly lit alley, and pushed against a large dumpster and a wall. It would be very difficult for any passerby to notice them at all.

"Quick! Off with the wallet! I don´t care about the bags –"- the hurried whisper from the thief was abruptly interrupted by a terrifyingly loud growl which reverberated in the passageway. Both of them were disturbed by the apparent proximity of whatever had caused it.

Samantha saw the man compose himself first and hurriedly turn his head back and forth looking for the cause, before doing anything else; meanwhile, she decided to remain as immobile as possible for now.

She still jumped a little when barking sounds followed.

_'That must be a really big dog'._

The thug now alternated between looking at the entrance of the alley and the darkness deeper into the passage, not knowing where to retreat to. "Dammit all! Down boy! I said down".

The barks started to turn deafening. Samantha turned her panicked eyes to the wall, too afraid to look. She was terrified of what the man might do should he lose his nerve. She heard a sudden clanking sound in the shadows, and both she and the cloaked man turned to face it. The hand holding the knife also was pointing that way now.

Everything happened so fast that it was almost like a blur to her.

With a sudden crack, the hand with the knife was viciously crushed by a brick which seemed to have come out of nowhere, and it was followed by a child sized shadow. The newcomer dropped down from above and drop kicked the thug´s head before interposing himself between them.

"AARGH!", The mugger was now cowering and desperately trying to protect the heavily bleeding side of his head against the raging child whom kept leaping and viciously beating him up while snarling words she couldn´t understand with a rasping voice. The boy seemed to be around ten years old and only wore ragged brown shorts.

The exchange was almost too brutal and swift, and it ended when the thief collided against the opposite wall and collapsed.

"Damn you brat.", were the only words he managed to mutter before passing out.

She saw the small pool of blood which soon formed beneath him.

A short while passed before her shivers stopped and she dared to fully turn around to see her would be savior, only to let out a soft gasp at the sight before her.

The first things that drew her attention about the child crouching and slowly moving towards her, were his tear-stained face and piercing eyes. Partially obscured by his dark and wild-looking almost shoulder length hair were yellow-golden irises which resembled a feline's.

It was evident to her that the boy had been crying until very recently.

_'Is this a parahuman? Some sort of Brute and Mover? I´ve never heard anything similar to that language he had been speaking', _She could see his expression slowly softening from that terrible rage he had shown before, and she could tell that his fury had not been directed at her nor the mugger, but was something far more broadly encompassing.

When he fully stopped before her, now with a concerned look to his face, she noticed some things that she had missed earlier. Like the considerable amount of dirt and grime on his lightly tanned skin, and the quite unusual dark gray marks, tribal-looking in design, running as a few lines across the skin of his arms, legs and back.

"Eihden ne?/ _are you okay_?", She was a little startled at the rasp in his voice, even though she couldn't understand any of what he said.

Her eyes showed her confusion.

The boy´s lips briefly showed a smirk, before he grabbed a piece of brick from the ground and easily threw it over his shoulder against the same wall which had clanked earlier, further into the alley. When he saw the realization in her eyes the strange child cleared his throat and gave a single bark, much more softly than the ones she had been hearing before but still easily mistaken for a dog´s. After that he slightly cocked his head to the side and started to chirp like two different kinds of birds with astounding accuracy for a very short time.

It had all been him. Unless he had prepared everything beforehand, which was unlikely, that kid easily had her attacker in the palm of his hand the entire time, using that extraordinary and freaky talent for mimicry and misdirection. All so he could ambush him directly from above. And neither of them had even noticed. She watched as he tried to say something more, but he closed his mouth and sighed. He then briefly looked back at her attacker, before showing her a shallow and small cut above his own left knee.

She couldn´t help but stare at the short black claws on his fingers, as he pointed at the small wound and then at her, _'he even has those wicked-looking things on his toes too'_.

_'I definitely don´t think he speaks or understands English', _Samantha decided to just wave her hands dismissively to show that she was now fine. He seemed to understand and gave her a nod before heading off to the side, still moving around in that weird natural-looking crouching position and using his hands to help support himself.

She realized that he had started to curiously check one of the plastic bags that she had dropped to the ground. Meanwhile, she fully recovered her wits and started to walk around him and pick up her other bags.

Stopping before the kid, she extended a hand at the same time that a soft grumbling sound of hunger coming from his stomach interrupted both of them.

Despite this, he quickly recovered and turned to return her bag. In his off hand, he was waving an apple at her. He had taken it while she wasn't looking.

_'Asking for just this sort of payback for saving me ..', _She distractedly nodded to let him know he could keep the fruit. In the meantime, her thoughts were whirling over his apparent status as an abandoned foreign child. Perhaps she could lead him to the police station for help? He gave her a brief smile before he stood up and ate the apple with hasty bites, not letting even the core and stem go to waste, as he began heading back towards the unconscious thief.

Still mildly disturbed by everything she had just seen, she decided to walk to the entrance of the alley while pulling out her cellphone in order to call the police.

She had just started to dial when she was surprised by a distraught noise behind her. She then turned around and saw the unusual kid desperately tending to the body of the fallen thug and intermittently screaming in distress.

Samantha was shocked. She saw him press two of his fingers to the neck of the man and then turn panicked and pleading eyes to her while showing her a hand-sign with his index finger and thumb very close together.

She hurriedly called for an ambulance and for the police, while attempting to calm the child down with hand gestures which he wasn´t paying attention to.

The minutes seemed to pass too slowly as she waited for help to arrive, and in the meantime she could only keep trying and failing to calm the foreign boy down. In his careful prodding of the dying man, he had noticed the grievous head injury. She saw him roar in despair while his eyes briefly glowed with a fiery orange light.

After that display, he just withdrew back into himself, muttering sporadically and clutching with both hands at his head.

_'He didn´t really seem in a good headspace earlier, and now with this .. is he losing it?'- _Samantha tried to approach him, but he seemed to shy away from her and scuttled deeper into the dark alley they were both in. The only thing that was left was to try to reassure him, tell him that it had been an accident. Even if he couldn't understand the words, she hoped he might understand something nevertheless.

After a while, something seemed to get through to him, and the supposed-parahuman went to kneel besides the man with new resolve. She remained quiet while, to her further amazement, he positioned his hands very near to the wounded head before these started to softly glow with an ethereal green light.

Turning her attention from that, she decided to take a look outside the alleyway to see if all the noise had brought more people to the area. There were a few vagrants keeping their distance, and even a short haired girl with two dogs whom was scowling in her direction, but she was glad that nobody was drawing near. This would make it easier for the police when they arrived.

Just when she was about to return to the alley she saw and heard the police cars and one ambulance quickly heading her way. They parked on the street and two policemen started making their way over.

Ecstatic that everything was going to be over at last, she waved to get the attention of the policemen, pointing in the direction of the side street where they were needed.

She quickly explained the situation while they walked, and the policemen signaled to the paramedics to get ready.

Samantha and two policemen were surprised to only find the dying thug in the alley, with no signs of the kid. Behind them, a paramedic started to shout, pointing just above their heads.

They turned just in time to see a small shadow quickly crawling up the wall and disappearing when it reached the rooftop.

The next moments passed almost in a daze. She watched as policemen coordinated a search via radio while the paramedics questioned her and carried the injured man to the ambulance. Still dazed, she answered every question she was asked.

Later, as she sat inside of a police car that would take her to the hotel, she couldn´t help but wonder if that little kid would be found and given the help he so obviously needed.

The outlandish boy would be found in short order but it wouldn´t really lead to him being helped.

The paramedics and the doctors were later puzzled by the ashen-gray tissue which stitched across the right side of the face of the thug, closing the wound shut. Unfortunately, it did nothing about the infection, the skull fractures, or the critical brain damage which was still taking their toll.

The man died by the sunrise of the next day.

**A/N**: Foreshadowing and implications!. I would deeply appreciate your comments about this experiment. Until the next time


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** I don´t own the characters/setting/ideas from the web serial Worm by Wildbow; though there are a few OC in this fic, all of which are of my own creation.

Here´s the second chapter; any comments or opinions would be appreciated!

* * *

\- " Speaking aloud and normally"-

\- _Memories / dreaming / reading written or typed text _-

\- ' _Thoughts _'-

\- " **_Very deep and incorporeal voice_** "-

\- _'Accurate interpretation of the sent or received broadcast [Broadcast of underlining thought]'_ ˃˃

* * *

**Chapter 2: First Impressions**

(Everyone has their reasons – Staring into the Void – A journey of a thousand miles.. ˃

* * *

.

January 03, 2011

_Standing in the middle of the small, familiar park near her house, she watched the snow fall, as delicate snowflakes slowly drifted down and blanketed everything in pure white. She breathed against her gloved hands, the vapors visible in the chilling weather._

_The girl had experienced this before. Back in November, she had gone one afternoon to the park and drank hot chocolate, which she so rarely did._

_'Something is odd though. I remember there being at least some people, but there's nobody here.' A gust of wind came, rustling her purple scarf and the flaps of her thick brown coat._

_Those had been memories of peace and quiet. A time of self-reflection and of asking to herself what she would do now, without a mother and no friends. _

_In the present, she found herself walking over the frost, starting to notice a very soft and distant humming sound; and while her feet were taking her in its direction, she realized that it was a beautiful melody sang by a feminine but strong voice._

_Drawn by a serene, all-encompassing presence, it wasn't long before she reached the source of the song._

_There she found a very gnarled and tall tree, its thick trunk composed by two lesser branches tightly entwined, and a small patch of tall grass with a frozen flower at the center before her._

_After taking a few moments to contemplate them, she took some steps back, stretched her arms to her sides and started turning in a slow twirl, and at that the melody was filled with renewed cheer and a flow of falling snowflakes started to spin around and together with her._

_'This must be the coolest dream i´ve had in a long while', feeling quite unusually carefree she smiled and closed her eyes, all the while continuing to spin in time with the snowflakes; and feeling how the cheer in the wordless song slowly increased. It was just the girl and the unseen singer, both encouraging and bringing joy to each other._

_Unaware of the passing of time, the girl continued her dance, not yet fully aware that she was, in fact, not really dreaming. She had referred to all of this as a dream and still not woken up after all._

_Little by little the tunes began to die down, and she started to come to a stop._

_"__That was just plain awesome", opening her eyes, she whispered the words and these were followed with a low cracking sound and a jingle._

_Turning, she saw that the flower had thawed amidst the patch of frozen grass; revealing a single white tulip, not that she remembered ever seeing one before._

_'Pretty ..', The thin girl walked towards it, and contemplated plucking it out but decided against it._

**_"_****_This has been more than just a dream. A song about my hopes placed upon a child´s path of rebirth and communion with the *abyss*",_**_She was startled at the gentle voice that seemed to come from somewhere in front of her. It was only because she recognized that same voice as the source of that song that she didn't run away._

**_"_****_Thank you so much for listening to it. I hope you might do so again. Time to wake up", _**_the leafless tree in front of her seemed to quiver for a moment, and then very slowly started to uncoil with creaking sounds._

_"__Wait ! just what – who!?", Surprised; the girl quickly started to regain her awareness and to become lucid as she started to wake up and everything around her gradually faded into nothingness. _

_ "__Who are – How should I name you!?", She finally and hurriedly said with a louder voice, as all of her surroundings faded._

**_"_****_Shion", _**_the soft word is the last thing she heard there._

* * *

_._

**Taylor Hebert´s POV**

Groggily rubbing at her eyes, I awoke to the morning light seeping through the curtains in her room, feeling well-rested but somewhat lazy.

'That was surreal.' I still remembered that 'dream' clearly but wasn't sure what to make of it. Everything had been so clear and felt too real to be a dream but, looking back on it, much of it hadn't made sense.

Distracted, my eyes turned to the alarm clock. It showed me that I had around thirty minutes before dad´s usual time of waking up, and so it was time to get up and begin preparing myself to go to school. I grimaced a bit at that, but gathered myself and began making up my bed before going to the bathroom.

After taking a quick shower, I took a little while in front of the mirror while combing my dark curly hair and let out a sigh, _'it would be better for me to just forget about it; I will take it as a weird dream for now and if i´m wrong .. '_.

Unbidden, thoughts about having fallen victim to some kind of parahuman who could mess with people while they were dreaming came to mind, but I dismissed them due to being too early for that kind of paranoia.

Getting dressed, I headed down the stairs and made my way to the kitchen to start making breakfast for both myself and my father.

He showed up after a little while. In the meantime, I had been reflecting about the distance that had sprung between us after mother´s death and how it had affected both of us.

"Good morning Dad", I turned for a moment and somewhat awkwardly smiled a little at him, a new effort to try to bring us closer. "The pancakes are almost ready"

"Good morning kiddo", he looked a little surprised at seeing me like this, and smiled back at me. "You are in a good mood".

I nodded a tad absentmindedly while taking the breakfasts from the pans and serving them onto plates, "I just slept very well. It had been a little difficult lately because of the cold weather".

We started to eat while talking a bit about his job at the Dockworker´s Union. He commented that a large number of his people had been hired again in order to help in the repairing of the widespread damage which had been recently done to some of the deepest parts of the sewage system of the city. There were plenty of people angered because of the lack of any concrete evidence as to the cause of this, and it had been causing some drainage-related problems for some months now.

This lasted until we had to go their separate ways, and I grabbed my bag before going to school.

* * *

.

"I´m speaking with Dr. Erick Dawson, internationally known physicist. He´ll give us a review of the findings made so far about the so called 'Sky breaches' which were created during the Simurgh's attack on Las Bahamas in 2005."

There were two people on screen: a female correspondent in a formal suit and an older man in his fifties. They stood together before the gates of Boston University.

"Thank you Ms. Dillon". The man beside her said in a clear and measured tone of voice. "To begin with is important to say that the practical research into this subject is extremely dangerous and very controversial, especially since the theory needed to properly understand these breaches is currently rather underdeveloped. Quite frankly the only information we have to try and understand these, are the half-completed works of a deceased parahuman: the Tinker known as Haywire"

"That said, these 'Sky breaches' behave as portals located at least a thousand feet high and inside the Mexican and North American territories and centered on Las Bahamas islands. Remaining fixed in relative positions above specific places"

"These all lead to the same unexplored void-like space. There are exactly one thousand seven hundred forty two of these breaches; more concentrated near the biggest one at the site of the Endbringer´s attack, of nearly a mile of length, and becoming scarcer in number the farther from there you go. Currently, each of them are being monitored 24 hours a day".

The young reporter looked specially invested now, "But what about the ethereal and fiery streams which eyewitnesses have reported seeing? And what are the reasons no one's explored the space on the other side of these portals?"

Dr. Dawson gravely nodded before answering, "Before the surveillance and security systems were properly set up, there were a number of incidents where people managed to come into contact with these jade and blue *streams* and even a number of cases of people using means like superpowers, air balloons or dirigibles to (very recklessly if not outright stupidly may I add) enter said breaches or portals".

"These streams are seemingly composed of light and some unknown form of radiation, and when someone is exposed to one, there's no evidence of any physical damage. That being said, we've learned that they have the ability to dull pain, and give off a warming sensation. However, it should be stated that all those who have touched these constructs claimed to have felt drawn to them, and have been sent to psychiatric evaluations and subjected to careful observation".

A sigh escaped from his lips, "As for the strange void behind the portals, its study is extremely difficult because of the contradictory data we have observed and the fact that any device sent through would be lost or damaged beyond recovery. Still, we have managed to measure wildly changing levels of radiation and obtain images like the one on this picture ..". He paused and showed a photo containing a dense fog starting a distance from the entrance to the pitch black vastness, "Also we have to take into account that the risks involved in granting access through these breaches were deemed too great by our government, and because of the restrictions set in place we cannot send through any kind of living being .. which is a shame, because otherwise we have no way to conclusively determine if the declarations made by the people who had entered so far were true or not".

The reporter could barely restrain her own interest, "You mean to say that those people who went in could return to tell the tale".

The aged researcher nodded, "Nobody lasted in that void more than a couple of hours, and then exited through the same breach they used".

"After returning, those men and women were not making sense with their reported descriptions from the other side of the portals, and ended up being sent to psychiatric care and observation too. They became known as the cases 'EDW' -. *_click_*.

The screen of the small television faded to black with a click from the remote in the hand of the tall boy with the piercing eyes and almost ever-present scowl, who sat cross-legged on the floor beside the only couch on the living room. He wore worn jeans and a black t-shirt with the sleeves torn off.

_'There are so many things which are difficult for me to understand and they had often left me feeling so very curious or just resigned. Those *Exit points* prove it to *them* that there´s so much to understand or discover.. But together with the wonder, I also can clearly see their *fear*', _the unusual child mused to himself.

"Move your ass Freak. You are going to be late for school", said an obese man wearing only boxers. He sat on the sofa with a beer in hand, and nudged his least favorite protégée with his left foot.

The boy growled and removed a lock of his wild-looking and jet-black hair off his face while seemingly staring at the ceiling, "When are you and Martha going to stop calling me that? Call me Yagan or 'John' at least!".

_'I´m still not used to do this, but I shouldn´t just punch the jerk so he knocks it off with the unnecessary reminder of my inadequacies here'._

_'I suppose it´s time to pretend then; he´ll believe only what he has already noticed'_

The boy stood up and something like a vindictive smirk showed on his face as he locked eyes with his caretaker, "while I´m at school, hide your beer.. again".

"Fuck you brat!", the underdressed adult almost shouted. "You pull the thing with the water or any other of your funny stuff and I'll convince Davidson to cancel your deal, we´ll move you out of Brockton Bay so fast it´ll make you puke", He attempted to kick or trip the scowling kid, who avoided it with a simple step back.

Turning his back on the adult, he walked to his room and began putting on his cheap running shoes. As he did so, he answered without breaking stride, "Bringing the heavy guns so easily … Forget it then".

_'Dammit to the abyss!. So handily outmaneuvered, again! '_

_'What they are doing… they will never just stop', _Briefly clenching his fists, Yagan took a deep breath inside his small and spartan room.

_'I won´t be able to keep enduring like this, will I? If I was like a *human* monk or hermit it would be so simple.. But such is beyond my *kind*'_

The boy spent a while using a meditation technique to regain a semblance of composure and to go back to conceal his ever-present heartache. His mental mantra ran in fast-forward as it usually did, _'I must not keep thinking like this. This is normal for them. To only conditionally care for what/whom belongs to them. I must discipline myself more. Respect their ways, as they make them fit to this *world*. I made the choice.. I cannot allow myself to truly hate *them*, or I will not be able to pursue my goals here'. _

He was angry at the dishonest adults who had committed and saw themselves as responsible for him, and yet obviously didn´t really care. They used him and his abilities, but were always more interested in covering their asses before the law.

A memory of his birthplace came and went away, failing to provide the comfort it used to, despite of its own imperfections. Had he truly grown this *numb* and resigned?.

All he really had was the *purpose* shared with the "Goddess" who always wordlessly sang inside of his head, and his own plan to accomplish it.

He finished getting dressed and looked at the items gathered on the thin gray blanket on his bed: some books, a really thick notebook, a small case filled with pencils and erasers, a slightly battered thesaurus (which he cared for the same way someone else might a holy bible) and a worn sports bag. Inside it, still a creation in progress, was his future costume, though a more disparaging perspective might dismiss it as a mere disguise.

He stuffed everything into the bag and walked out the house he lived in.

_'Thinking back on it, maybe I should be grateful to the people back in Boston despite everything. The 'Venture Family Services' was it called? I can´t remember a single time they managed to take a blood sample from me. Now that would have broken past their willful obliviousness of what should be obvious. Although.. maybe they just conveniently decided I´m a 'parahuman' or it wasn´t worth the hassle and neither the money; I might never know, but surely someone must have suspected the truth'._

Walking on the street of the Docks for a while, he eventually reached a small shopping mall near the Boardwalk while he had been occupied by his thoughts. This was an area of the city where plenty of tourists regularly passed by, and from there he could keep going straight ahead for the most part for a few blocks until he reached the school.

For the past month, Yagan had been exploring this coastal city he now found himself in, and for all of its seediness and rampant crimes, he had already taken a liking towards a pretty big chunk of the Docks. It had access to the beach and to the ocean, relatively isolated and small parks, and shops where he sometimes could even find an odd job or two. He had already earned a little spending money for a few of his favorite places, like that coffee shop with a funny logo that sold cheap but good coffee, and the street vendors selling hot dogs and pizza slices.

_'Thinking they believe you´re a Parahuman, same happens with me [Sharing doubt but not apprehension] – or possibly just a *sullen teenager* because without expressing deeper feelings they won´t notice your inner reality [Suggestion to broadcast to *them*, Supportive persuasion] – You know I´ll tell them the truth about our kind real soon [Disclosure alert]' ˃˃_

The teen listened and interpreted carefully what he was 'hearing'.

_'I can´t wait to finally arrive there [Eagerness] – Yesterday i learned what *virgin* means when I mispronounced the state I´m currently in [Embarrassment, Humor]– Annoyed that people still think I´m *cosplaying* [Slight bother, Humor]- Your brooding quota for the day is filled, let it leak' [Humor]' ˃˃ - _In just under a second, foreign impressions of emotions and extremely detailed underlying meanings without actual words crossed his mind like a stream. He could almost hear the feminine and chipper voice of the one broadcasting them, even though he had never seen the other person face to face.

His scowl was briefly replaced by a small smile, before he started jogging while keeping his eyes closed and answering.

_'[Amusement]. Thanks, you´re right. By the way, it has been a long time since you last contacted me [Understanding]. We´ll have to continue to agree to disagree about the subject then [Unconvinced]. With no more moving around, I can finally proceed with my next steps by tomorrow [Alert]. Now, I´m going to see how much training I can pull off' [Gratitude, Goodbye]˃˃ - _one step after the other, even with a pace which was nearly a full-on sprint his footing never faltered.

_'To see how I can increase my range of awareness even more. Trying to filter out my own heartbeat', _He weaved around a couple, whom looked oddly for a moment at the fifteen-year old speeding past them with closed eyelids.

_'To improve my stamina on a flat ground like this one. Focus on the strength thrumming within, Our-Mother´s', _changing to a full-throttle sprint; he crossed a street just as the traffic light turned red.

_'To multitask', _Yagan leaned forward, lowering his center of gravity, and took a sudden leap towards a light pole, using it to push off towards the nearest wall. He ran across it for a while before he dropped back down to the street, and continued on past the bus stop towards the public high school up ahead. All the while, manipulating the flow of the current inside of him.

Winslow High was the largest of Brockton Bay's schools. It was surrounded by an enormous fence, behind which he could see a poorly kept lawn. Its staff was overworked, unable to pay any one student enough attention and, as a result, the gangs were able to run wild stealing, recruiting and committing vandalism so long as they weren't blatant about it.

In time, he reasoned, they would continue to improve so long as the deception against the *adults* kept going unopposed.

Slowing down to a walk, the mysterious kid entered, and quickly found he had caught the eye of some gang-members of the Empire-88.

_'None of my "additions" nor *markings* visible? Check. As I thought, just another lot being *shallow* punks', _after discreetly re-checking himself he stood before an older student with a swastika tattooed on the back of his hand whom was now blocking his path.

* * *

.

"If you need my help for something it will cost you your prejudice.. Kidding ", the smaller boy could see how the other´s muscles were subtly preparing to use force on him from the get go while he deadpanned his dry greeting.

"We don´t want your kind here smartass, you´ll have to pay the *special tax* if you want to pass", the gruff voice was slightly unnerved because of something the racist boy couldn´t quite place, but it was still filled with derision for the 'impure brown'.

The one with the yellow irises stood still for a moment with his head slightly cocked to one side, before smirking and answering.

"Meaning.. you want me to pay by proving my *Kind* to you?", he walked to stand a couple meters from the gangbanger, the two facing side to side; before he lifted the hand not holding his bag in a vague come-hither motion.

"Stop fucking around!", While the other gang members went to surround and screen the both of them, the older brawler followed what his instincts were screaming at him without much thought and pulled out a folding knife; before lashing out with his other hand to try and restrain the "thing" in front of him.

Why couldn´t he put his finger on it? That was rapidly making it so much worse.

_'Huh', _quick like a viper, the free-hand of the tanned kid had used two fingers to poke the underside of his forearm with such force and steadiness that his attempt was halted.

"Motherfucker!", A painful feeling of pin and needles quickly spreading on his entire arm, he lunged with the knife in his other hand; while the now-frowning boy in front of him raised the same hand a distance and a little above chest level, fingers still grouped as if there were only three of them (index and middle fingers together, the same with the ring and pinkie fingers, and the thumb remaining free).

Feinting for a moment, the thuggish gangbanger then got closer and tried to stab lower; but was abruptly interrupted by Yagan´s hand catching his own. He only got a chance to regain his stance a little before both of their hands shook in a sudden blur, a low snapping sound was heard and his wrist exploded in pain.

"AAARGH-", his scream was cut short when a swift kick to the shin dropped him to kneeling on the ground. Distantly and even among the stars he was seeing behind his eyelids, he could hear the concerned sounds around him and the clanging sound of his knife hitting the ground.

"That was the second *version* of my nerve-biter technique", at hearing the voice of his foe he looked up, and desperately tried to recover his hand from the other´s grasp. He was allowed to.

The boy registered as John crouched down a short distance from him and loudly snarled like some kind of animal?! Before speaking in a very low voice, "Tell them to stop cornering me and forcing my hand".

The gangbanger then realized that the rest of his group was circling around and towards them, some with pocket knives drawn, and he yelled at them to stop.

Fixing his leer onto the expectant? face of his strange foe, he couldn´t help but seethe in anger at this *impure* aberration whom had beaten him in three moves.

The smaller boy closed his eyes for a moment, and it wasn't a surprise that the gangbanger promptly gathered all of his strength, took back his knife, and slashed.

The tanned boy´s expression didn´t change even as he stood up and showed the shallow cut inflicted on his forearm.

All the gangbangers were shocked by the boy´s calmness, even as a few droplets of blood started to run down his arm.

"Got it out of your system because of what I did to your hand? Moving on...", the tanned kid then took a small package of bandages from his bag and tossed it at the feet of the kneeling gangbanger in front of him.

"I´d take care of that, but I don´t think you would let me.. So, now..", Abruptly turning to another gangbanger, who was blocking his way, he rushed at him.

Reflexively, the neo-Nazi raised both of his arms to defend himself, and the boy grabbed hold of them, using them as an impromptu pole vault. The acrobatics took the gangbanger by surprise, and he stumbled.

Falling on the paved floor of the yard, the outlandish boy straightened out before looking over his shoulder at the gaping and yelling gang members who had never seen such a feat before, "From now on you may find me indoors if you wish to continue.. just open your mind and hold no expectations". The fact that his voice remained calm and unwavering felt disquieting instead of being commendable.

"Yeah, well! You had better open your asshole! Because –", tuning out the shouts and insults thrown his way, he continued towards the building of the school; all the while noticing how a good number of bystanders who had been watching were now trying to keep their distance from him.

Yagan noticed that there were only a few people on the halls at such an early hour; and a quick trip to the bathroom allowed him to cleanse himself before going to look for the faculty office. All the while wondering to himself what some of the people staring at him would have done instead.

The wound on his arm had healed already, a very faint and thin light-gray scar on place.

* * *

.

There was traffic forming near the large public school, as numerous parents left their children off and went on their way.

Looking towards the entrance of Winslow High school, she noticed the gathering of onlookers which were talking amongst themselves. It seemed to be about what a group of Empire-88 recruits had just been doing, and the gangbangers themselves were now dispersing.

_'Hmm, what could they have done to start the week now? Well, no matter. This is "Gangbanger Central" after all', _Taylor had the feeling it was going to be "one of those days". Just before arriving at Winslow she had caught glimpses of someone who has started being called "a new urban ninja", whatever that meant, running and doing impressive and crazy jumps on the way to school from her position seated inside a bus and staring out of the window.

Looking away, she walked between the other students towards the school´s gate and to her first class after the winter holidays.

Hurrying up towards the classroom, she made it in time to history class. She checked her seat first before taking it, wary of pranks. Even though the terrible trio had dialed themselves back in the weeks before vacation, she remained leery.

Taylor felt a bit fortunate that she only had this class with the more childish and 'cutesy' of the trio of bullies: a girl named Madison Clements.

_'There´s been some time since they made their last "prank". It´s clear they´re preparing something', _she saw Madison give her a smirk, but nothing more.

_'Fuck! I just know they have something planned'_. She truly didn't know how to deal with the stress, as she waited for the shoe to drop. This, coupled with the teacher's monotone drone, left her incapable of paying attention.

Two periods passed by, and there was still nothing but cruel glances and smirks from the trio of girls who had been escalating their bullying from snide comments and remarks to attacks against her person and belongings, and anything else they felt they could get away with. Considering that the father of one of the bullies, her former best friend, was a lawyer; there was so much leeway she felt they could potentially get that frustration had given way to a kind of resignation and a small expectation of simply enduring the rest of high school or outlasting the interest of her tormentors.

At lunch-time, nobody made the effort to find her eating at one of her hiding spots at the stairs leading to the door to the rooftop.

_'Could it be possible that i´m overthinking it and they finally got bored with me? ', _Taylor made a mental snort at that, not really believing the voice of the faint glimmer of hope.

* * *

.

Classes for the day finally ended, and Taylor ran towards her locker to retrieve some of her books and then go home.

After opening the door of her locker and seeing what was inside, she couldn´t help turning her head to the side and start retching uncontrollably.

She barely saw the dark-skinned girl gleefully running straight towards her.

The girl felt herself being pushed inside the locker, she resisted but it was followed closely by the slamming of the door behind her, and it wasn´t very long before she almost lost her mind at what she experienced in there..

She thought that nobody would hear her cries.

_A pair of immense crystalline beings made their way across the void -._

_Countless grasping hands of ichor lashed out from the open gate of a massive surreal temple, of alien architecture. Paradoxical engraved shapes seemed to pulse and jerkily move across the walls. It looked as if it was made entirely of polished marble-._

The girl wouldn´t remember neither of the two almost overlapping visions. She knew no more.

* * *

**.**

**Taylor Hebert´s POV**

The gnarled tree stood on the center of the park under a breathtaking and starry night sky. The two loosely entwined branches making up the trunk now contained a jade-green flaming orb.

Resting on a small patch of tall green grass, the lanky girl with the brown eyes groggily looked up at the heavens while her head rested on the lap of someone she didn´t know.

_'I just don´t understand. Why did Emma betray me? She must have told Sophia to push me inside the locker just now. Did she and the others try to kill me? Am I dead? Will someone tell Dad? Is this Heaven? ', _Her head felt like it was stuffed with cotton, and she could barely even make sense of her own thoughts; which were interrupted by a humming sound directly from behind and above her, a familiar wordless song comforting her.

"Are you God?", She asked out loud without caring about moving her head or looking at the singer.

An ethereal and delicate looking hand that looked as if made of softly-glowing ivory reached out and placed a white tulip in her hand, **_"No, I am not"._** A pause as the unnatural hand was then placed atop her head to lightly caress her hair, **_"We met while in your last dream. Now like then, you hear my *Voice* and your mind interprets everything as it can"._**

Taylor just hummed a little, still feeling pretty out of it, and raised her finger to draw made up constellations in the sky with imaginary lines; except said lines truly appeared in the sky!, "This is not real, these are just hallucinations. Am I going insane?".

The touch of Shion was abnormally faint and light, **_"This is reality which occurs within your mind. And you seem discouraged. Will you ask me to painlessly take your life away? Or will you rise and fight?"._**

"Why do you ask such a thing?", she answered after a brief moment, nonplussed at the matter-of-fact tone of the question. _'Would- would she really?!'_

**_"_****_*Child of those who hold you dear in their hearts*, something outside of my own comprehension is affecting you right now. I am safeguarding you from the pain coming from processing thousands of senses. That and alerting the nearest one of my descendants is all I can do from the vast distance which separates us.. Child, right now you are dying", _**although it had not seemed possible the touch quickly grew fainter until it vanished into small flickers of light; the apparition supporting her having seemingly been absorbed by the flames inside the tree.

Like someone had dumped a bucket of cold water on her, she came out of her daze and practically jumped to her feet, "W- What!? that doesn´t make sense! I don´t have a thousand senses. JUST WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON!?".

The girl embraced herself in fear as the bits of information about this *Shion* started to paint a picture she could hardly believe; and so she wildly looked around before choosing to face the old tree, "And you.. Whatever you are, why me? Why do you reached out to me? What is the meaning of *that* inside of my head?".

There´s a short silence where part of her feared she wouldn´t get any answers, and so she tried to calm down; maybe then she could manage to understand.

**_"_****_I have deduced why my *Voice* could reach you as well. Simply put, I have been *screaming* all this time for my two children there to *hear* me. As you slept within a radius around one of them; you could *catch* some of that, and didn´t reject me in fear like plenty of others before yourself, as their minds interpreted me in different ways"._**

**_"_****_I gifted you *that*, the tree and the flower, and you could destroy them if you willed it. Though, right now are helping against your crisis. The tree embodies the frail and only mean of direct *communication* with you I possess, and the flower symbolizes your consent to allow this.", _**Taylor wasn´t all that sure, but she/ it sounded pleased.

The voice then became very somber, **_"As to what is happening to you, when you fell into despair, something strange happened to your brain. You've gained the power to perceive through the senses of many *living ones* around you, through thousands of perspectives at once. It's killing you and I can't stop it. *I don't understand it, but it feels anathema to me*."_**

At first, the girl just stared blankly at the tree, still boggled at the sheer and seemingly randomness of it, but then she truly became transfixed as she grasped at what she could clearly understand, this could only mean she now had a power. She was a parahuman now. A dream come true.

She could start to feel vague sensations of her body violently jerking, and of smashing herself against the metal walls. All of it was too much to take in, but she just knew, in a distant sort of way, that she was now convulsing. Just her usual luck.

This was really killing her (and also possibly ruining her brain cells) when she had never heard of a cape being killed by their own powers.

It was terrible. It was unbelievable. It was horrible. It was wonderful.

**_"_****_It seems my hold of your senses was only enough to let you take a breath. Now, I ask of you again. Will you painlessly *move on*? Or will you *fight*?", _**All around her everything had started to become dim and almost washed-out. A headache started to afflict her.

Images of her Dad´s worried expression, of the trio of her bullies, and of the city flashed in an instant through her thoughts.

If people had seen her in that moment, they would not have been able to tell if her eyes were filled with despair or resolve.

One of Taylor´s feet raised and then fell a little ahead of the other, walking with slow but determined steps, and so it was until she stood before the unnatural tree and her grasping hands neared the orb of fire. It was just warm and strangely inviting instead of scorching.

"There´s so much I don´t understand. I am grateful to you for seemingly giving me respite. Thank you", the pain only intensified as her surroundings gradually disappeared. It was like spikes were being pushed inside of her head.

"But I just don´t get _what _you are, and I can´t think of any proof at all for you to give me that would tell me for sure you didn´t have any part behind of this". Was it truly a coincidence that it/she appeared on a dream the same day this happened?

"I don´t want to hear you anymore, but thank you for everything. _Thank you_", She hiccupped as tears started to flow, afraid of what she was going to do. It was the only choice, an absolutely insane one, which came to mind.

**_"_****_You´ll hear me through my *loved* children. Take what you will of my *taint*, even if it´s unknown to you. I won´t stop you. However I will tell you that you possess a *locked* memory about a pair of immense beings making their way through the universe as they look for *worlds*, shucking away fragments of themselves. Some fell on the bay where you live"._**

Taylor nodded at that, deciding to think more on it if only she lived through this.

She would try to take anything that could possibly save her. She would figure out a way to fight throughout. She needed to.

For now, she only wanted to live.

With a yell, the girl plunged her arms into the depths of emerald fire; before the entire clearing exploded with a flare of blinding white.

A strand of light faded forever, as a small white tulip forsaken on the ground burned away.

* * *

.

Different loud voices were almost drowned out by the unending scream coming from the tormented girl.

Light streamed down onto her face, silhouetting someone above her.

A demon with eyes glowing with a soft red-orange light. Something was off about it, uncanny. *It* was a monster who had opened the door of her locker.

_'Was the glow my imagination? Now they are just yellow, like a lion´s.. or a crocodile´s'._

He reached a hand out to her.

.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer:** I don´t own the characters/setting/ideas from the web serial Worm by Wildbow; though there are a few OC in this fic, all of which are of my own creation.

* * *

Here you go; as always, any comments or opinions would be appreciated!

\- " Speaking aloud and normally"-

\- _Memories / dreaming / reading written or typed text _-

\- ' _Thoughts _'-

\- " **_Deep and incorporeal voice_** "-

* * *

**Chapter 3: Personal Questions**

(Taking notes – Everyone has their reasons – Justifying alien gift economy ˃

* * *

.

January 09, 2011

**PRT Director, Emily Piggot´s POV**

_From: Prospective Ward._

_To: Director Emily Piggot of the Parahuman Response Team of Brockton Bay._

_I hope you were able to get this message. If you are not the Director then please delete this message without reading it further. Thank you. _

_Please don´t answer back to this cellphone number, as it´s borrowed and I don´t own any contact devices. This is just a notification in order to ease the setting up of a future meeting. Looking forward to it, I have heard good things about you._

_I´ve been addressed by a few names, but I would prefer if you called me Wendy. I am a wannabe Ward with a complex situation, currently on my way towards Brockton Bay and expecting to arrive and finish settling in on a couple of days. I would like to give some personal information in advance and also alert you of a few things I´ve noticed on my way to your city, where I intend to camp at the beach after arriving._

· _About me: *Here*, I started my travel from near the Texas-México border carrying only a little money with me. I don´t have a birth certificate, proper ID, Social Security number.. my situation is comparable to that of a homeless orphan. I was told by a truck driver you´d want to know about my capabilities first of all; those are best not detailed here, but in broad terms I have already designed pretty handy ways to wield an inner form of energy, and I am constantly developing these techniques. I´m sorry for not being able to rate myself like the PRT would do it, but I really don´t understand that classification__L__. _

· _Some news from my journey: There is an exchange of drugs between México and Texas, farmers complain about the effectiveness of the protection provided by parahumans, plenty of potholes on the roads due to parahuman fights throughout the South-eastern coast, forays of violent people covered with white sheets towards your city, and the dangerous parahuman known as Corsair is also on his way (I plan to intercept him before he reaches your city). _

_Best regards to you from Wendy._

_Signature: The limits breached by you and me._

The director of the PRT branch in Brockton Bay was certainly not amused as she finished reading the message someone had sent to her official contact number.

_'I was lucky to have checked and recovered this supposed spam mail in time before it was deleted'_, she was slightly irked. It seemed Wendy wasn't one for proper protocols. Then again, it could simply be a matter of ignorance. For the moment, she would overlook that issue

After quickly skimming through the text again Piggot couldn´t help but feel exasperated at the last paragraph, '_It´s always the same with these reckless kids who get powers. This girl intends to rush into a mess way over her head, and apparently without any kind of support_'_._

A quick search through the files on her computer confirmed many of the reported problems. And she *tsked* with a hard expression on her face when she looked at Corsair´s files.

_Parahuman File # 00096448-06. Archive list C._

_Cape Identity: Corsair_

_Civilian Name: [redacted]_

_Gender: Male_

_Age: 36_

_Costume: Tattered large dark blue overcoat with ragged clothes underneath and silken pants. Also wears a black balaclava and a pirate´s hat. Warning: often seen carrying small firearms and a tinker-tech cutlass not of his design._

_Affiliation: Villain. Threat level: C._

_Classification: Tinker 4*, Brute 2, Mover 2. (Shipbuilding specialty)._

_Highest reported sub-classification of one of his ships: Blaster 5, Mover 5. _

_(see profile description)_

_Originally from a small coastal town in Florida, he migrated towards the coastal Hub city of Lewes in Delaware. There, he became a prominent member of the largest operating and prevailing gang in the city: Black Sails. _

_By the time of his capture and arrest on February 1__st__ of 2010 he had been found guilty of numerous charges, amongst them: smuggling of all sorts of illegal items (including drugs and weaponry) into the state, several accounts of theft and the destruction of a private property._

_After he was broken out by the Slaughterhouse 9 three months later, it was discovered that he had been supplying several gangs in the Northeast with armaments and vehicles (armed motorboats, etc.). He's believed to have connections with over a dozen murders across the state (see case files # 003852-06 through 003867-06) and has recently been sighted in New Jersey. Presumably, this would make him one of the very few failed recruits from the SH9 which has been left alive afterwards to date._

_The subject has a Tinker specialty of building highly-advanced and often armed nautical vehicles such as motorboats and larger classes of ships, which can be maintained by normal specialists for the most part. This parahuman is also able to perform remarkable feats of agility and strength when compared against base-line humans, but he lacks the capabilities exhibited by higher ranked Brutes and Movers (speedsters). _

_It's strongly advised for the public to try to avoid this violent parahuman if at all possible. If you have encountered this criminal, or has any information which might aid in his capture, should immediately contact your local PRT offices of Protectorate Headquarters._

* * *

_._

**Taylor´s POV**

My father left the plain hospital room, leaving me alone with my thoughts. Through the eyes of a fly, standing on six legs upon the handle of the door, I watched his retreating back.

Well, that was what I could figure out from its composite blurry sight. Fuck, the mosaic was really giving me a headache.

The last act of the bullying campaign from the 'terrible trio' had been impossible to hide from my Dad. With what he had listened through my sobs, he now had a better yet still incomplete idea of how truly bad it had gotten for me at the school.

I blinked and returned the entirety of my focus to my human-self, looking down at the blanket I was tightly gripping with my hands, _'All of that effort so he wouldn´t worry so much. Useless_'

I took a deep breath and relaxed my hands. Thanks to the sounds I could hear from the corridor I could tell that there were people just outside of my room. Some of them were probably going to come in.

'_If dad actually learns about the full extent of the bullying, that Emma is now the worst of them and how long it had been going on.. he´s going to lose it, and the worst is that it won´t end up mattering at all_'. Not with the school´s principal and the staff bending over backwards for my bullies, or with how the Barnes would defeat us at court by virtue of Emma´s dad being a lawyer, and his willingness to drag out the proceedings until we couldn´t afford it anymore.

Really, the only silver-lining to all of this seemed to be my newly-gained powers; and speaking of which..

Even though I was getting better, I still couldn´t say I had completely figured them out.

In the beginning, I had found my ability to control any bug within a radius around me quite lame, especially since I had to guess at the meaning of the shadows and discordant blaring sounds I could sense. But I had found out something amazing while attempting to actually control the movements of more than a single bug at once

It had been so painful that I had to stop, and after sobbing to myself at the unfairness of getting such a pathetic power I decided to try and focus on the tree. That tree which I had seen on that bizarre day. I persisted until I felt almost like I had become "it".

And just like that, within the same radius as before, I could actually control all of the bugs at once. I could also envision a sort of short lived 'slideshow.' In the middle of it all was the tree/myself, and all around it were ghostly shapes of all the people and animals nearby. Something like threads or beams of light extended from me, fixedly attached to the small creepy-crawlies; but were constantly swapping between the rest of the silhouettes at lightning speed. Only I could see the threads, however this required concentration.

Surprisingly, I also noticed that there were two others who, even outside my range, I could usually detect. The threads connecting us were considerably thicker. Their silhouettes were that of a boy and a girl.

I thought that I could actually focus these "links", connecting multiple threads to a single specific animal or person if I wanted to, but still hadn´t tried it.

The first time I had seen all those beautiful strands centered upon me, I was left breathless. It had resembled an explosive surge of radiance, like nothing I had ever seen. Thankfully it happened late at night, and I hadn´t been questioned about my reaction.

A nurse entered my room then, "Hello Taylor. I'm glad to see that you are doing better this morning. How are you feeling today? Did you already have your breakfast?"

"I'm fine, thank you. And yes, I already ate", I answered as the nurse retrieved the platter I passed to her.

"Good. By the way, do you feel up for talking? A boy came to visit you. Although it seems like he forgot to bring flowers," the nurse winked at me.

Slightly flustered, I just lowered my head and gave her a nod.

"Got it," she exited the room, and stopped at the doorway when she was addressed by someone I couldn´t see.

"Is it okay for me to speak with her?", I didn´t recognize that voice. It sounded deep and accented in a way I had never heard before.

"Sure, but don´t agitate her. Even though she has been recovering well during the observation here, we don´t want any set-backs", the nurse answered him.

A somewhat familiar boy, only slightly taller than me and seemingly around my age, entered the room. I thought he was the one I had seen doing crazy jumps on the way to school, but wasn´t completely sure.

He wore a gray t-shirt and jeans, together with worn running shoes. From his broad shoulders and bare well-muscled arms I could tell he was fit, and from the barely visible scars on them he probably had gotten into plenty of fights.

I blinked when suddenly his form was overlaid with the demon I remembered from the "locker incident", unbidden in my mind.

Quickly checking, I realized that his silhouette indeed matched that of one of the pair "linked" to me. If only I knew what the threads meant.

What was actually making me nervous about the boy, now looking at me with a carefully neutral expression, was the foreign and dangerous presence he gave off.

'_All right. I admit he´s kind of attractive, but I don´t get why I feel on edge around him. Maybe it´s just because i don´t know why he´s here, and he kind of looks like some Latin gangbanger, like I had seen on the news some time ago_'

Before I could really put my finger on it or ask him who he was, he started to speak, "I already had to tell the police, other *adults* and even your father a few days ago. You also deserve to know."

'_What?!_ '. "What are you talking about? Who are you?"

He walked towards the wall opposite to my bed and rested his back against it, arms crossed against his chest, "I told them about the events I witnessed, surrounding that disgusting locker."

"They knew I had pulled you out of there.. and apparently I screwed it up and ended up punished afterwards. That´s what usually happens when I meddle, but it was worth it if I was able to get you out of there in time."

I could only stare at him in shock, even as he continued, "As for my name.. it´s okay if you call me either John or Yagan. Nice to *meet* you Taylor"

He gave me a brief reserved smile, and the unnatural edge to his presence faded almost completely. Although, now I was curious about the accent with which he seemed to emphasize certain words: like *adult* and *meet*.

Also, thinking about what he had said I couldn´t help but to feel both thankful and embarrassed that he had seen me in such a state. He had gotten me out of that damned trap made by the three despicable little bitches that..

"Nice to meet you too", I focused on trying to clear my head. "What´s – What´s with the two names?"

I couldn´t believe I stuttered just now.

"I am registered as John Venture. Yagan is part of my actual birth name, but the *adults* couldn´t verify that since I am not from around here".

I supposed he came from a really peculiar place then. What kind of name was Yagan anyways?

"Um.. Where are you from?"

Yagan´s expression turned distant at that, "From a very faraway place.. I think it would be better if I gave you now the same cliff notes I told your father and the others". I realized that he didn´t want to talk about his origins, but couldn´t imagine why.

He waited for me to nod at him before he continued, "I decided to remain at schools for a couple more hours after the classes for the day had ended. Afterwards, I noticed a few people, who had left from extra-curricular activities, gathering near a locker. Some of the girls were laughing and there was a stench in the air, and so I went to open it. Two of the girls attempted to stop me, I shoved them aside and managed to pry open the door. I found you and picked you up to take you to the school´s nurse. I insulted and offended the whole lot of people around us. Some girl tried to stop me again, but I ignored the hits and carried you until we reached the nurse´s office".

"The girls talked to a teacher and the principal. I ended up suspended for three days for _assault_, being _disruptive_ and I don´t remember the rest of it. At some point they recalled what was important and mentioned your situation".

Yagan shrugged, "And after I came back on Thursday, I started being called *a freakish punk who hits girls* but it seemed like everybody forgot that you had been put into a place worse than a barrel filled to the brim for almost two hours, and those girls still tried to stop me because that was supposedly your *place*".

I made a great effort to prevent any external change on my expression as he spoke, but I don´t think I was entirely successful. I could only dejectedly stare down at my blanket as the strange boy went and sat near my feet, presumably to try and comfort me.

That retelling included details my Dad hadn´t gone much into when he had spoken to me. Although he had focused on the school having taken over the costs of my hospital stay and providing a substantial extra. He also had even told me that there would be punishments, though I wasn´t holding my breath on that. All of it clearly was in order to hush things up.

It was probably because some of those things weren´t directly related to me, but still..

'_There are plenty of holes in that tale. Nobody would normally do all of that. And also it is a little disturbing how blasé he seems to be about certain things_\- _wait! How did he know how long I was in there?_ '

"You were purposely vague when you told this to my father and the others. Also, how did you know how long I was trapped? Just how- why did you come for me? Why did you care?" I discretely wiped at my eyes and awaited his answer.

A brief moment of silence passed, and when I dared to raise my head to look at him he was smirking at me while his now more noticeable golden irises were locked onto mine.

'_He must have contact lenses_', I attempted to convince myself. It wasn´t working.

"They could have stopped me if their will had been greater than mine then. I deduced the amount of time you were in there from some of their comments." Yagan briefly cocked his head slightly to the side.

"You also ask me the arguably most important question. I didn´t go into much detail with the *adults* because I couldn´t be sure how appropriate it would have been to elaborate without speaking to you first"

"Again, why did you care?" '_when no one else.. No, I have gone over this. The other students had themselves to worry about_', I didn´t want to sound ungrateful but I really needed to know. I stared at him.

He looked briefly towards the window to my side before returning his eyes to me, "Even though I can´t really give you any reassurance, would you still like to hear?"

Yagan noticed that my glare didn´t subside in the least. Not until he started explaining himself, "Thanks to the *alert* I received I knew I had to act quickly in order to prevent your death, and because that wasn´t actually your *place* according to even your own people here. You have the same rights to *meet* and fight as everyone else, after all".

"Others contradict this? But such a world where anyone could *fade* just like that", the boy before me suddenly snapped his fingers. "Nobody would strive for it", he paused for a moment before continuing.

"In short I mean that I just acted because of my own beliefs. There was also the small hope to clarify some issues and that you could tolerate and overcome my *presence*. All of that is always true for everyone regardless though".

_'Is this guy for real?! _', I was somewhat incredulous but also taken aback by the way he was talking. He clearly didn´t have that well of a grasp on the English language. I had been tempted to correct his pronunciation a few times already; maybe it came from what I remembered of the lectures from my mother.

He had been getting more worked up towards the middle of his speech, but it was hard for me to make sense of this. Was he trying to get ahead of my thoughts and convince me that not even his particular hope was taken into account? Was there something behind his belief beyond obvious common sense or simple kindness?

I certainly didn´t think that anybody, with the exception of true psychos, would want to live in a world where a person´s life would be easily discarded. But was he projecting something about my circumstances into such a thing? That was a gross exaggeration. There would have been consequences if I had died in there..

It was only questions after questions that kept popping up in both of our minds.

The two of us sat in awkward silence for a short while, as I mused over what he had told me. Until a foreboding weight settled on my mind when something clicked.

"Um. I don´t actually remember some things from when I was in there, but.. when you said something about an alert what did you mean?", I looked at him while dearly expecting that he would say that someone had simply noticed something wrong and told him.

He just stared blankly at me, making me feel uncomfortable. I was sure others would have found creepy his normally focused and piercing gaze while speaking, but this.. Holy shit.

"You already know the answer to that, _she_ made me aware of this. And speaking about that subject.. Things would have probably happened differently if someone from the crowd had interfered on your behalf instead".

"Could you please tell me on your own opinion why they didn´t do anything? Nothing from my own conclusions explains that", Yagan´s expression turned uncharacteristically pleading.

_'So he is related to that Shion. It is so hard to believe. All of that was such nonsense'_

Resigned, I just sighed and slightly shook my head. During all these months of bullying it had always been the same thing, "I can´t be totally sure but I think that they didn´t want to be targeted by Emma, Madison, Sophia and their hanger-ons".

Yagan´s expression hardened for a moment before returning to normal and turning his head towards the window for less than a minute.

"Speaking like this is very slow, don't you think?", I came back from the reverie I had fallen into when I heard him.

I just looked at him and raised an eyebrow.

He turned to look at me again, "We still haven´t discussed my conclusions from what I gathered in the following days, nor which of those I am supposed to tell to your father; even though we have been talking for a while already".

"He is waiting for more information coming from either of us. So I suppose I should apologize for involving myself in such a way but I think the *adults* managed to manipulate me. I´d rather not think about that as it´s still somewhat pissing me off, even if I would have probably agreed if just asked"

It was true that I was annoyed at him for involving himself so much and possibly making bigger that entire mess.. But it was greatly outweighed by the gratitude I felt for him getting me out of there and possibly saving my life?. Damn, I had been having nightmares since then, and I just knew they weren´t going to stop for a while.

"It is okay. I understand", I was reluctant but still accepted it.

Taking a deep breath, I mumbled to him, "Thank you for getting me out of there"

The outlandish boy nodded at me in acknowledgment before continuing, "I don´t want to bother you too much and I suppose we can keep talking at school if you want".

"I know you are still on a degree of denial about what happened. So if I haven´t scared you.."

Looking at his face I couldn´t help but ponder on it. There were some details about him that I intellectually knew I should be finding more off-putting or outright frightening.

These details were hard to define, with the exception of his uncanny eyes.

But was I afraid of him? No. Maybe that nonsense about Shion and that tree had affected me somehow, taken away something.

I didn´t have a clue what was with him, but he barely managed to make me a little anxious. That was all.

"Um.. No, surprisingly you don´t frighten me. Are you some sort of parahuman?", I blurted out the question without thinking on it. _'Oh crap! '._

I had been something of a cape-geek not that long ago, and I knew that you shouldn´t go around exposing the civilian identity of capes or active parahumans.

He just lowered his face, the bangs of his wild hair obscuring his eyes, and shook his head once.

"…I am getting this vibe from you that you haven´t talked with anyone this much in a long time"

The boy looked up at me, a thoughtful expression on his face that morphed into a slight smile, "Actually, seldom since arriving *here*.. Thank you for being patient and honest with me".

I just gave him a small shy smile in answer, as he got up from the border of the bed, and waved him off.

Another question came about then.

"Aren´t you- are you sure you want to see me at school, where the trio and their followers would target you as well?"

He lightly snorted before answering, "I never cared about that sort of thing. Sooner or later I would get a reputation like the one I currently have".

"Some of them have more reasons to annoy me now, I guess. But "threats", like what they would make, are a test of will".

I had to admit that I had never thought about it like that.

"Um.. and what if you did care? If the threat was directed towards others so they wouldn´t hang out with you, instead?"

I saw him get a little pensive at the question, but he had seemed to be opening up and so I continued, "I'm really sorry if I'm wrong, but even forgetting what the 'mystical voice' said you don't really give me the impression of someone at all interested in friendship. Hell, it seems to me that you're ready to use violence even if it gets you punished at school, and then there's that disturbing aura you've got going."

"Perhaps you think that you can´t make friends for some reason?"

Yagan looked sideways for just a moment before answering with some admiration in his voice, "You are a sharp one, to be able to notice that so quickly.."

"I never truly adapted well to the way people do things *here*. Nevertheless my inadequacies are under wraps, and I do have other plans for such situations, but I'm aware that I´m not likely to form anything more than good acquaintances".

"That said, the choice of approaching someone even under threats clearly belongs to the individual. Though I figure there might be some suitable solutions..", he looked thoughtful while looking down for a brief time.

"This is quite a deep subject, and I think that it would be for the better if we continued it tomorrow, if you still want to", the boy easily answered me after a pause, with a hint of eagerness in his voice.

"Right", I answered him. _'I feel that he´s really convinced about what he says. It´s also odd how much he seems to like talking about serious stuff like this'._

The tanned teen addressed me after a moment of thought, "Before I leave, there´s something I´d like for you to think about".

"A deal, as things seem to go around here. You could give me your answer later".

I perked up again and listened, "Sure. What is it about?"

"I need tutoring in some school-related topics. We are both in the same grade/ year but I bet I am going to struggle more than you, especially at Math. I also want to learn more about particulars of the state-law since I couldn´t figure them out at the public library", Yagan explained.

"Since I don´t have much available money, you could answer my doubts as best as you can in exchange of.. Something along the lines of helping you with those three bullies?", he continued, giving me the impression that he was willing to do so regardless.

"Um..", I wasn´t all that comfortable with his suggestion, and I wasn't even sure I would be able to help him adequately. My test grades tended to be average.

I was already wary of how everything was going to be at school from now on.

"It might be something concrete you had already thought of but couldn´t do because you would have needed help", he added before continuing more intently.

"Ok, before I tell you what occurred to me please keep in mind that I am a foreigner, and so if any unbecoming implication ever comes up, could you please try to ignore it and only pick whatever would be useful to you?"

"..Ok. I will hear you out. But it will be my call", I nodded slowly, guessing it was something I could accept like that.

He nodded at me, "Alright, the tutoring could be in exchange of some of the following:"

"Use my subtlest skills to covertly sabotage their attacks to you when I am able to and for a set duration or building a rep for myself and attracting as much of their ire as I can or otherwise diverting their focus from you. These might give you a brief rest from it"

"To enact an scenario where you fight me and the trio is convinced of your change and of your *strength* or pretending to be your boyfriend for a while and then "break up" with a fight where you demonstrate the same things. It´d maybe shake their preconceptions of you so they might leave you in peace".

I blushed a little and stared at him with wide eyes, he had said all of that with such a plain casual tone, _'Did he just suggest that?! '._

"Make sure some teacher often "happens to" catch them in the act, and being present as a witness for as many of their attempts as I can so you can convince the principal. We would be doing this with the hope that blatantly exposing them like this works".

Yagan had kind of confirmed my impression about him with the amount of thought he seemed to have already done, and he continued speaking in an encouraging tone after a brief moment, "Look, I know how many of these options sound but they really wouldn´t be as taxing for me as they look".

"Just *hang in there* and think it over, ok? You never know when you might receive an epiphany and figure out something even better." The bastard tried to encourage me.

How long did he think the bullying had been going on?! I had spent so long trying everything I could and looking for solutions, and he just comes and says this to me?

I couldn´t hold back the bitterness in my voice, "That´s easy for you to say. How long do you think this had been going on?".

Yagan just held his palms up for an instant before shaking his head once, "I don´t know how long has it been. And as for "easy for me".. Is it, truly? I am aware that I have you at an unfair disadvantage".

"Though, I don´t think that you would want to hear about my problems at this time.." he looked weary when he said this.

_'__Damn, what troubles does he think he has?. Though I just don´t know him, and he seems to be "unusual" to say the least'._

"Oh, ok", I was already starting to feel tired myself. "I´ll need to think really hard on your suggestions, so.. See you tomorrow?"

The boy turned around and gave me a wave of his hand over his shoulder as he walked and exited the room, "Bye, *see you around*".

_The Path has been updated. Eight hundred seventy steps eliminated._

* * *

_._

**A/N: **And the setup for plenty of crazy awesomeness is ready. Incoming next: a chapter filled with the action from the first extended battle of this fic. Enjoy!


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer:** I don´t own the characters/setting/ or ideas from the web serial Worm by Wildbow; though there are a few OC in this work of fiction, all of which are of my own creation.

* * *

Here you go; as always, any comments or opinions would be appreciated!

\- " Speaking aloud and normally"-

\- _Memories / dreaming / reading written or typed text _-

\- ' _Thoughts _'-

\- " **_Deep and incorporeal voice_** "-

* * *

**Chapter 4: Presages and tidings**

(Wrathful raid – Smiling newcomer – At the drawing board ˃

* * *

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**Corsair´s POV**

**.**

_"__You know, it doesn´t behoove you to be so greedy", The man with the neatly-trimmed beard and fine looking features said to my gagged and tied up form. We were upon the deck of a shipwrecked frigate, which was distinctive considering the time of such ships had long since passed. The vessel had been destroyed to such an extent that it was possible to place it as the centerpiece of the most spacious room at this museum. I had already sworn that the wretched loon who had ambushed and captured me would have his comeuppance._

_._

_After I escaped from here and got my hands on him, no one else would dare to stop me from retrieving what is mine, nor steal from me ever again. Nobody!._

_The blaring and recurring sounds of the alarm going off were getting on my nerves._

_Maddened. I suddenly thrashed with all of my power, trying to free myself._

_With a flick of his wrist, my eyes were drawn to a golden doubloon with an etched skull as it spun in the air. My teeth grinded together and I felt my heart beating faster, as another emotion started to pool around in my gut._

_"__It´s funny, there is a legend about this Mayan gold," Jack Slash started to chuckle as he imagined his inner joke turning into a living irony. He would ask his precious poppet for help._

* * *

.

January 11, 2011. (Tuesday)

.

The heavily modified and medium-sized speedboat had been cresting the waves for a long time now. The sea was agitated in a way that suggested that a storm was oncoming.

.

The imposing man garbed in a tattered coat and a dark balaclava stopped his reminiscing and turned his head to see the setting sun about to completely disappear under the horizon while he manned the wheel of his ship. The chase for the abomination in the form of a lithe girl, who together with the police forces, had flushed him out of his hideout and stolen the ship carrying the most valuable of his possessions, had become too drawn out. He would sink that ship and be forced to retrieve his "treasure" from the bottom of the sea if he had to, all to finish her off.

Even if he also had to set the visible coastline on fire to keep the law enforcers from interfering. He had shells with payloads which could do that.

.

He looked down at the screen on a device strapped to his left forearm. He could see the location of the tracker on the taken and seemingly shipwrecked vessel as a dot on a map. There also was a much larger blinking icon a short distance from it which was probably an abandoned cargo ship. The villain could measure the distance to his target, and a cruel smirk went unnoticed under his mask when he realized that she couldn´t have gotten far away and they were almost there.

A few minutes passed before he could finally make out the seemingly abandoned and enormous cargo ship which overlooked what he knew to be the beaches near Shantytown and the Bay of Brockton, just up ahead.

"Look awake! The wench who stole from us must be on that ship- Rgh. I´ll focus on sinking it, you two make sure to blow her down if she jumps to the water," his raspy voice alerted the two nervous and scruffy dressed men who were taking position at the pair of mounted heavy machine guns in front of his seat and facing forward.

The frenzied villain took a swig of rum and flicked on a couple of switches on his control station before slowing down the vehicle.

.

A brutal looking canon which outwardly could have belonged to the Age of Sail rose onto the front deck. He used the device on his arm to aim the tinker-tech weapon for a maximum-velocity direct shot, and fired. With a deafening sound, the gun kicked back, just as he roared a warning to his crew.

Anticipation rose in him as he heard the barely audible whistle of the shell on its flight.

.

'_It will detonate after piercing the hull. This is – Wait! What!?_'. Abruptly the sky was lightened up by a fiery mid-air explosion at half the distance between him and his target. The massive shockwave causing violent waves which threatened to throw him and his crew overboard.

Snarling, he put on his binoculars and looked at the main deck of the gigantic cargo vessel and its stockpiled containers. There was someone readying another piece of the handrails like a javelin at least as long as she was tall.

.

_'There she is. So the wench could intercept a shell traveling at those speeds. I would like to say bullshit but I´ve seen other capes do bizarre feats before'_, his expression started to become more feverish as he saw her hold the metallic shaft in something like an Olympic-throwing stance. It seemed that she wanted to confirm to him that indeed such a piece of crap could reach him, even from so far away.

_'It is On'._

* * *

.

"Nonetheless, the ETA for reinforcements will be around twenty minutes at least. The immediate priority is to identify the cause of the reported explosions, report back as soon as possible. Over", Armsmaster heard and acknowledged the transmission from the PRT officer before hanging up the call from his helmet and continuing to focus on driving the small speedboat which he had tuned up for just this sort of situation.

.

It actually hadn´t seen much use in recent times, with the convenience of flying capes like Dauntless to respond on emergencies at sea and on the Bay, but he was always secretly glad when his preparations paid off and allowed him to work on problems other Protectorate capes couldn´t or when they gave him just that edge against the villains.

.

Coffee and his energetic blends could only do so much though, and he felt like he needed his interrupted hours of sleep. Nevertheless, this was an occasional demand from his chosen career that he was always prepared to acquiesce to. One could practically say that his entire life was solely dedicated to this.

Seated beside him, Miss Militia equipped her night-sight googles and lightly knocked on the bullet-proof windshield protecting them to get his attention and spoke above the humming sound of the vehicle speeding over the waves, "Hey. Don´t you think that this means that the villain the Director told us about a couple of days ago has finally arrived?"

"We have been preparing for him, even coordinated together with the BBPD and Coastal Guard, but attacking that area doesn´t make any sense".

.

He considered her words, "It might be Corsair doing this, or it may just be a distraction. Anyways, if it is that psycho, there´s a possibility that the girl the Director told me to expect will be there too".

_'The chance to recruit a new ward is something I won´t miss'._

Miss Militia nodded at that, before suspiciously looking at a flock of cawing birds coming from the stranded rusting ships which they were currently passing by. Armsmaster knew that those had been blockading the Ferry Station South for years now, already being a regrettable fixture of the city. He didn´t understand what had caught Hannah´s attention.

Turning to look towards the front again, he adjusted the night vision provided by his helmet and focused on the mission instead.

_'The place where the explosions are supposed to be happening is just behind that building on the coast. Just a little more.. ', _the driving hero was eager to finish this mission quickly and successfully.

"Armsmaster watch out! Stop the boat!" He started at the sudden shout from Miss Militia, but reined it in and shut off the motor all the same. A bird flew just over both of their heads and started to slowly circle around them.

"*Pruu! Pruru*", both heroes didn´t know what to make of the creature laboriously trying to land in front of the windshield of the boat as it swayed. Hannah stood up and was covering his back with her handgun drawn.

.

"That thing is not a seagull! It has been maneuvering while following us", the comment from Miss Militia was confirmed by the strange sounds it was making even after landing and animatedly gesturing with its wings, and the details his visor was picking up even in the low-light.

.

The creature looked like an ordinary seagull at first glance: with beady black eyes, a white body and silver feathers on its wings. However some things were off. Like its fuzzy white legs tipped with gray talons, and the lack of a beak or any other sort of visible mouth.

He noticed that it had a small rolled up paper tied to its right leg, and that it had approached them with short hopping steps in order to offer it to them. There was something faintly disturbing about watching an animal behave like this, like there was a human intelligence behind it, _'this is a Master´s doing'._

_._

Armsmaster and Miss Militia looked at each other for a moment before he approached the creature, untied the simple knot holding the small roll of paper, and began to read it. Meanwhile, the bird-like creature took a perch on the upper border of the windshield.

_This is a message for PRT or Protectorate forces near Danger-zone._

_My name starts with W. Confirmation follow-up to signature sent to Director: Won´t be through ordinary teamwork._

_If coming over to help: please follow pet to avoid cannon._

_Cargo ship sinking=signal of my capture plan for C* ending one way or another. _

_._

"Just as I thought, the girl is a Master. Call the Director to confirm this. Also, I suspect that Wendy is her real name and she doesn´t have a cape identity", the armor-clad hero passed the piece of paper to Miss Militia and she proceeded to call the Director, while the Protectorate leader turned to the creature.

"Can you hear and see me through this thing, Wendy?". He tried to not show his discomfort when it nodded its head and its pitch black eyes seemed to follow his every move.

.

"If you are a match, I have decided we´ll follow you to where you are but I will be expecting you to disengage at the first opportunity and give us a short briefing on the situation. From then on I´ll be taking charge and there will be a full debriefing once this is over. Do you understand? You are not instructed in proper procedures here."

He was honestly expecting some kind of refusal, but the small being just readily nodded again and took off on a slow flight just ahead of them. Armsmaster revved up the engine again and followed.

.

"It checks out," Miss Militia said, holstering her weapon and taking a seat. "The Director just gave the go ahead. Just one thing: we need to prevent any fatalities there. I've notified Officer Grant of this development."

.

He noticed that at one point Wendy´s pet abruptly took them further towards deeper waters instead of straight ahead; but he still followed and accelerated as much as he could, forcing the flying creature to struggle to keep the pace.

It was almost fifteen minutes before their trajectory started to turn towards the coast again, and his radar pinpointed three crafts of different sizes on the distance.

.

They were approaching one side of a rusting cargo vessel, and even as Armsmaster mentally started to prepare himself, he saw a flash of light and heard an explosion not far from the other side. The resulting fireball was so large that it easily could have been seen from the city proper.

.

A moment passed before a screen on his ship´s control panel alerted him that one of the ships had detected and locked onto him, and so he readied for taking evasive actions against artillery strikes while the unknown aspiring-ward now guided them in the direction towards the bow of the hulking ship.

.

_'Those are definitely high explosives. I´ll need all the data I can quickly gather, like that cannon´s rate of fire, If we are to be ready for when he comes for us or we´ll have to go for him' _

"We are staying on this side for now! Radio Corsair´s vessel now and be ready to suppress them on my signal", Armsmaster lowered the speed and began to make a steep turn when they reached the front of the ship, which was obstructing the line of sight of both the villain´s tinker-tech cannon and his own field of vision.

.

"Halt and lie down your weapons this instant! This is the Protectorate, with PRT forces on the way. This is your only warning", he heard Miss Militia shout into the small speaker connected to the radio on their ship. She then started to ready the M240 machinegun onto which her weapon had transformed, the charging handle being pulled in order to lock the bolt to the rear with a loud click.

At that moment, the bird-like creature shot straight up and left them.

"**_Corsair, here._** **_This doesn´t concern you, heroes. Leave! It won´t be – GODDAMIT! GIVE NO QUARTER TO THE STUPID WHORE!",_** The answer they received left them with no doubts as to what was going to happen once the villain´s ship appeared from behind the rear and counter stern, as Armsmaster´s radar was showing them would happen soon. The villain would come out rampaging through everything on his way.

Another deafening sound from a shot of the cannon was heard closer still, however this time there wasn´t any blazing lights accompanying it, just the short-lived sound of tearing metal.

_'I´ve got it timed', _Armsmaster´s attention flickered towards a proximity alert on one of his screens.

"**_Looks like she can´t deflect depleted-uranium ammo, this is almost over- click_**", the radio transmission was cut off just before the local Protectorate leader finished orienting their craft alongside the cargo vessel and towards the rear. Just in time to see Corsair´s speedboat appear from behind there, moving at a frightening speed.

.

Armsmaster knew he had to finish his preparations for what would assuredly end in an instant. He discreetly adjusted the modified launcher gun resting inside a box at his feet to be more easily at reach. It contained the device which he had prepared just to deal with the crazed Tinker, after receiving the warning of his impending arrival.

.

"That must have been a breach in the hull. We go in closer. Now!". Still the hulking transport refused to sink for some reason, and he increased again the acceleration of his ship, as the bullets of the enemy´s machineguns started to relentlessly ping off his craft´s armor and windshield, and Miss Militia also fired but wasn´t managing to pierce their hull and damage the enemy´s ship.

.

_'Probably assisted by some tinker-tech device? They are being too accurate even at this distance- hm', _The blue and silver armor started to receive droplets of water as it began to rain. However, part of his attention was momentarily drawn towards the cargo ship.

_'That must be Wendy over there. She matches the description given by the results of Miss Militia´s investigation, as ordered by the Director', _the following events happened so fast and suddenly that Armsmaster would only be able to pick them apart in detail after going over the recordings from his visor.

.

A red haired girl, hair done in a single long braid, wearing a brown top and skirt, with an off-white long object and a quiver at her back, appeared by the bulwark. She back-jumped almost twelve feet high, towards the accommodation ladder of the gigantic rusting vessel. Meanwhile, Corsair and his crew passed beneath.

.

His visor picked up the moment when she stretched her back while in mid-air, revealing that she had armed herself with a bow. There was a pointy dark shaft as an arrow already loaded and nocked.

.

The hero would later grimace at the recording showing when she twisted her torso and rapidly fired four successive shots, nocking and releasing all of the arrows she had at an almost impossible speed. Quite the deadly-looking aerial attack.

.

The first and second arrows pierced the left forearms of Corsair´s men, who screamed and stopped firing. The third hit Corsair himself on his left shoulder and the fourth shaft hit their windshield, but the arrow just harmlessly broke upon it.

Miss Militia also managed to graze the villain himself with her NATO rounds when he rose up. Corsair however seemed unstoppable, he snarled while drawing his onyx cutlass and ripping out the arrow from his body.

.

The girl completed her spin, falling upright, and balanced herself over a handrail of the metal ladder. She turned, discarding her now snapped bow, and nimbly dashed barefoot with supernatural grace. Then, Wendy drew her odd off-white and single-bladed axe just before reaching the end of the rail, crouched at the edge of it, and abruptly threw herself towards Corsair´s craft.

_'Was this her insane plan all along?! ', _The two vehicles had been unalterably getting closer to each other all the while. Armsmaster knew he would only get one chance.

.

_'It´s all I am going to need', _keeping a hand on the wheel, he picked up his Chekhov's gun one handed and turned off the safety, just as Wendy landed besides the already quite scuffed tinker-tech cannon. The combination of a wave and the strength she exerted making the villain´s ship sway hard towards one side, and unbalancing everyone there.

In a continuous motion he saw Wendy kick at one of the systems coupled to the base of the cannon, resulting in a shower of sparks, and use one hand to pull herself above it. She then dropped towards Corsair with a primal scream and an overhead swing of her weapon.

.

_'Is that thing made of bone? ', _Armsmaster even recognized the shape of the end opposite to the blade of Wendy´s weapon_ ._The villain faced her with a furious roar and both of them clashed their weapons with a resounding clanging sound. Both of them now holding and supporting it with both hands.

.

"HAAAARG!", Corsair´s yell suddenly increased in volume, gaining a ghoulish hollow reverberation to it. The haunting scream came together with greater strength, and the villain managed to throw Wendy overboard by the other side. She fell to the water with a yelped "Owie!" and a splash.

.

"Oh no!", Worried about the hit Wendy´s head took against the rim of the boat, Miss Militia stopped firing, and her weapon shifted into a handgun again.

At that moment one of Corsair´s crew hurried and turned off the engines while yelling his surrender. He seemed to have an idea of what was about to happen.

.

"Get ready for retrieval!, I´ll cover you. On my count", the villain´s vessel suddenly swayed towards that same side so much that it send everyone there except Corsair also overboard. Having said his piece to his teammate, Armsmaster saw Corsair desperately and manually start to adjust the cannon towards them.

.

The villain stopped for a second when he saw him, only a few feet away.

"Three", the hero shot once at the hull of Corsair´s craft while speeding past. The ship was quickly stabilizing again, and the cannon kept being aimed at them.

.

"Two", the small square-shaped device which had just been attached to Corsair´s ship went off, and every piece of electronics there were fried. There were short circuits in most of the equipment and even the cannon.

.

_'Seems like the improved EMP launcher was a success', _furious, Corsair attempted to shoot them with an odd but clearly tinker-tech sidearm, but missed and chose to abandon ship after shooting a second time but at something on his own speedboat.

"One. Go!", Armsmaster had quickly turned around and slowed down near the immobilized craft. Miss Militia started to point out the locations of the two crewmen who had fallen to the sea so they could approach them. She diligently set to collect and handcuff them as rapidly as she could.

While Miss Militia tended to them, he chose to scan the surface of the water for clues as to the location of the two others missing. The only thing that jumped at him was that there were a few out-of-place rusting chains sliding down from the deck of the cargo ship and towards the seawater.

After the same crewmen who had surrendered finished spitting water and composing himself, he heard exactly what he didn´t want to hear.

"WE HAVE TO GO! IT´S GONNA EXPLODE!-", The crewman began coughing before he could finish speaking, but the two Protectorate heroes didn´t need to hear anything more.

"ARMSMASTER!", He heard Miss Militia shout at him, and he hurried their craft to follow Wendy´s pet. It had descended again, now leading them towards the rear of the cargo ship.

.

He had just made it to the other side of the ship and gained some distance when he had to yell for everyone to cover their ears and shut their eyes while ducking below cover.

.

The booming sound that followed couldn´t be compared to any of which had preceded it that night. A white and fiery mushroom cloud illuminated the night sky as all the remaining ammunition left in the villain´s ship detonated.

.

_'Looks like my helmet handled it well', _when the lights faded and he could recover his bearings, he noticed that everyone else was still only hearing a ringing in their ears. He focused on helping them while checking what his sensors were showing him.

It was hectic. The waves were even more violent than before, and the gigantic vessel had a gaping breach at the bottom of its hull. It extended to almost a half of its total length.

.

_'It is starting to sink down. Not a real loss. However, where are those two?', _He returned most of his attention to helping the others, when he couldn´t find neither Wendy or Corsair.

"*Pruuu*", Miss Militia pointed so Armsmaster knew to look behind him. He could see Wendy´s creature perched on the front seat and gesturing wildly with its wings.

.

He turned to Miss Militia, "The chains were part of her plan? So they could climb them?". Miss Militia nodded to confirm his deduction, and Armsmaster turned towards the bird look-alike again.

"You are not as hurt as I think you must be, right? You got him to chase you into that sinking ship, and all of this was your way of reeling him in so that we could capture him?", He watched as the creature moved a wing in something like a so-so gesture to the first question, and nodded to the second.

"Do you want at least one of us for a last push then?", He briefly smirked when he got Wendy´s answer to Miss Militia´s question, and proceeded to call for an update on the ETA of reinforcements.

.

After a short time he ended the call and addressed Miss Militia, "Reinforcements are coming in a short while from the North. ETA is five minutes".

"We are going to move towards the cargo ship, I will go in there. I want you to wait for my call and the reinforcements at the site where the third craft is submerged". Armsmaster pointed at one of the screens of their ship, and Miss Militia acknowledged his order.

.

They navigated with haste towards the sinking battlefield, although carefully in order to not be thrown off the ship by the waves.

.

_'A Master who is also a Mover and a Brute as well. Director Piggot will be very interested in this', _When they got near enough, he could distinguish two shapes fiercely fighting atop the strong cables of a heavy lift rig. Even as he watched, when the bigger of the two combatants cut through the cable they were balancing on, the smaller fighter was able to relocate the battle towards a cargo crane, and the fight continued uninterrupted.

.

"It is unbelievable how those two are pulling those maneuvers off when the entire thing keeps tilting towards the rear and sinking", He heard Hannah´s comment and noted that she seemed awed by what she was seeing. Armsmaster could also recognize the skill being displayed but he couldn´t see any hint of a formal training in neither of them. There was a huge risk of a catastrophe occurring when people like that fought in such precarious circumstances and couldn´t keep control of the situation.

It had happened to him a few times in the past, and never since he stuck to his regimen. Not because of that reason at least. _'There´s something about the girl´s moves however, and she is controlling that duel. She is baiting and leading Corsair, I can see that'._

"By the way I think that she´s a fan of yours. That thing is not really an axe, but some sort of short spear with a bladed side. Some of her moves resemble your own", Miss Militia added while barely suppressing a smile behind her flag-patterned scarf.

"She can´t be human I tell you. The bullshit she said, the shit she pulled off..", The other crewman started to remark, but shut up when Armsmaster looked at him.

"Never mind that. The boss is the real deal. Corsair´s a bug-fuck insane and skilled asshole, especially since the SH9 got to him, but he isn´t the leader of Black Sails, you know?", they heard the voice of the last occupant of the hero´s ship.

"He keeps exchanging people like us. Threatening us and our families, kidnapping and even forcing us to take some weird poison while holding back the antidote all so he can control us in the short term. But his enforcers at the base say he almost never touches actual money, so he can´t be the leader… I am truly sorry for what almost happened back there", The young crewman whom had warned them before said in a choked-up voice with his head hanging down, while the other crewman looked sourly at him.

"Are you poisoned?", Miss Militia became alarmed. Armsmaster thought that it was an unusual and extreme method of coercion, which would have gotten a kill order on Corsair´s head on its own merit. Once the murders he had committed before were definitely confirmed he was sure to get one, anyways.

"Yes, we both are. It is a tinker-made drug. It greatly enhances your sight when stressed out enough while allowing you to cope with some secondary effects, but it slowly and predictably kills you", the weary man answered.

.

"Our backup will be arriving soon and they´ll take care of you. Just hang on and remain silent until you are brought into custody", Armsmaster curtly said, and then turned towards Miss Militia just as they arrived and stopped besides the cargo ship. "Be ready to answer my call. I may need your help. Opportunely for us the location of the third craft is just a short distance away".

.

"Be careful", She answered him as he started to climb the hull of the sinking ship with the help of electromagnetic pads on his boots and gauntlets. They were already gone by the time he had reached the main deck and took a moment to look back.

.

Cautiously, he made his way around the chained down and empty containers, some of which were sliding towards the base of a rig. There was the sound of gunshots not a long distance away, and so he advanced towards there.

.

A groaning sound erupted all around, and the entire floor started to also tilt towards one side. He had readied his grapple hook, when a chilling and rage-filled scream echoed from the direction he was going before a loud slamming noise.

He sprinted and jumped as fast as he could.

"**_You will pay for this! By the time I get out of this- cough- the others will already have fed ye your own innards- cough- and I´ll be on my way to recover what is mine", _**It took him a few moments to find the opened hatch covers, revealing a number of containers stored on a lower deck. The hoarse coughing sounds were coming from down there.

"Sir Armsmaster, leader of the *heroes* in this city..", The light cast off by the waning crescent moon exposed the origin of the feeble voice he had heard. The lean form of a girl sat over one of the upper containers with her legs sprawled. She had a long and bloody gash on her right shin, and she looked really ragged and exhausted overall, but she was still giving him a soft smile.

He bordered the hatch while advancing towards her and activated his social assist program (created just for him by her long-time associate Dragon) just in case, "Wendy! Where is Corsair?"

_'Bright purple irises, really? And it is not a contact lens', _Armsmaster surmised that she didn´t look older than fifteen years old.

She brought out Corsair´s blade and offered it to him after using it to point at a top-less reinforced container on a lower level and to the other side of her, "Over there. This is his sword and he lost his guns. Its edge vibrates and burns when switched on. How much time do we have?"

"Roughly, around a couple of minutes. Can you walk? That looks serious", He took the cutlass and cinched it at the hip of his armor after a cursory examination with his visor.

.

She bobbed her head, "I am ok, just a second. I really need a break". He watched as a short-lived flickering and ethereal green light turned her wound into a dark ashen scar before she stood up, but choose to delay his questioning and accompanied her hobbling steps towards the border which would allow them to see their foe.

He kept his surprise to himself at what he saw.

The moonlight revealed the desiccated and sinewy pale flesh under the tattered remnants of Corsair´s clothes. His broken but still writhing body rested near a corner inside the metallic box, soaked in a good amount of his own tar-like blood.

_'This has the fingerprints of Bonesaw', _His fists clenched for a moment as he held his anger and revulsion in check.

"He never once let up. Nothing I could do on my current condition was sure to safely incapacitate him, and so my plan hinged on you guys from the beginning. Can I just give you the full debriefing on our way to land?", Wendy stood by his side, looking down morosely at Corsair with a darkened cast on her only visible left eye.

Armsmaster tossed down a small containment foam canister at him (He didn´t believe in overkill) before turning towards her, "Yes. We are done here. Disarmed and with his legs broken, he can´t possibly escape now. I´ll ask Miss Militia and the PRT agents which already arrived to take care of the rest, you can get a ride with me after we finish up with some details if that´s okay.. What is the problem now?"

She briefly shook her head before pointing at her own head, "He.. is sick and I just kept failing to stop him and.."

Wendy´s own fists clenched, and she strapped her weapon to her back with a different look on her face, "No, I just did my part in stopping him at last. And now he might have his brain fixed.. Sorry for thinking out loud, I do that sometimes"

.

She then turned towards him with a slight smile while patting down the bangs of reddish-auburn hair which fell over the right side of her face, "By the way, you impressed me with your navigational tricks. Shifting slightly side to side without giving off a pattern so you are harder to get a lock on?"

"Anyways, proper introduction time: I am Wendy and I don´t have a true last name, shall we go? There are some pending explanations"

_'I suspected it, but she truly was keeping a really close tab on everyone back there. I suppose she did it through the bird-view provided by her pet. Though, I wonder.. '._

.

He smirked at her praise while observing that her voice had turned considerably more chipper, and that she tended to speak quickly and with a Texan accent. Something to consider for later.

"It comes from an official training program", the veteran Hero replied while subtly leading towards a recruiting pitch in the near future.

"Another thing, you should know that It´ll complicate matters a little if you don´t have a cape name, a parallel identity like mine, but we can talk about that afterwards".

Armsmaster then dialed Miss Militia and the arriving PRT backup through the radio incorporated into his helmet in order to get a lift and start organizing how they were going to retrieve and transport the villain and the submerged third craft.

One of the most veteran PRT officers on site took charge of these operations, and also started communicating the orders from above about how to deal with the fallout of the events which had transpired.

.

Some time passed before Armsmaster and Wendy could travel north on his tuned-up craft, accompanied by some PRT agents on three other speedboats, towards a temporary and makeshift operation center set up by the PRT on the beach. They were both exhausted by now, and she only started giving her report when they were already midway towards their destination.

"So.. I never had to make a report for a *hero* before, but I guess it would be okay if I just tell y´all first the order in which things happened without going too deeply into my reasoning as to why I did things the way I did", he saw her idly touching the bandages that were now covering the cleaned wound on her leg, while she talked.

.

"Stop doing that, they´ll come off", he lightly reprimanded her before answering her implied question. "It is okay. This will not be anything official for now, although knowing some about your reasoning would be helpful"

.

Wendy listened to him and got as comfortable as she could on her seat. She looked drowsy, "Well, let´s see.. It started two- three days ago now, I think? Anyways, I was at a town at the eastern end of Nueva Jersey and near the border with Connecticut when I stumbled into a warehouse while I was looking for a place to sleep in".

Armsmaster was puzzled by that last bit, "Why not looking for a hotel or some other safer place?"

The girl briefly placed a hand over a sash tied to her waist "Because I only have very little money left.. and It might even be sodden now. Anyways, When I went to look inside there was plenty of shady-looking movement from balaclava-wearing thugs led by a man someone there referred to with the cape name of Corsair, which I had heard about before, and *Pru* overheard that they were moving everything towards Brockton Bay by ship".

The hero became slightly alarmed then, "Do you mean that there´s a possibility of Corsair´s crew coming over? Maybe a big part of Black Sails?"

She crossed her arms behind her neck and kept talking while looking upwards, "Is Black Sails the name of his gang? I wouldn´t know". Wendy´s intense gaze flickered towards him, "but if they do come to this city they are likely to attempt to do the same things I know Corsair did. I´m not going to let them".

Armsmaster knew this was the sort of thing he should inform the director off as soon as possible, "It seems you didn´t come here because of them. Why did you come to this city specifically".

Wendy had a look on her face which he couldn´t read before smiling a little "You could say I´m on a 'quest'. I already knew that the protectorate base I was already heading towards was located here too, so I went searching for someone who could lend me a cellphone for a minute to send my message to the Director and call the police. Then ran back when I heard screams from the direction of the warehouse"

When he looked sideways at her, she had a self-deprecating smile and her visible eye was locked onto his, "I had been spotted and had to fight a bunch of gunslingers pouring off into the street and harming bystanders and also the people inside the warehouse."

Armsmaster could picture the scene on his head, _'It sounds like she ended up in the middle of a situation which grew out of control'._

"Eventually, I was forced to retreat because he started to shoot at me even while his subordinates were in close-quarters with me. My techniques weren´t enough and I couldn´t get through to him", she continued while trying to rest.

Nonetheless, the Protectorate hero felt the need to interject, "I assume that you mean that you have learned a number of ways to use your powers. Do you have other abilities besides the ones you used earlier?"

To his further puzzlement, the girl winced at his question, "..If you really must call them 'powers'. They are complex to understand, and naturally, I only used what I thought was necessary at every instance."

"I will try to explain them to the PRT director whenever possible. At any rate, I tried to flee from that battle, but I realized that many additional bystanders were about to be involved, but couldn´t find any way out which avoided this.. until I looked at the sea".

The veteran hero listened as she concisely explained the plan she had come up with and what she had actually managed to achieve. Wendy had gone underwater to escape pursuit, used another of her 'pets' (she called it 'Oriel') as a tracker aboard the craft Corsair ended up using, and hijacked the most hidden and secured ship for her own use.

The idea had been to bait the villain so he could be restrained or delayed at a location of her choosing. Needless to say, things didn´t go so smoothly since something happened at the warehouse, and she wasn´t followed until the next afternoon.

Corsair never lost track of her though. And when he came closer to the girl, she sank the stolen ship and made her stand on that cargo ship, hoping the heroes operating on this bay would help her trap him.

After a brief moment of consideration, Armsmaster commented.

"Almost two days of being pursued at sea on top of a prolonged shootout seems like a bit too much to handle for a teen like you".

She smiled in a playful way that he thought really suited her, and then giggled?

"You wouldn´t believe how many times I´ve been shot at. It´s a *running gag* to me by now", There had been a few things which had seemed abnormal about the girl wearing handmade fur-trimmed clothes, but that last statement coupled with the odd feeling he got from being around her just then, took the cake.

* * *

.

January 11, 2011. Meanwhile and earlier that night.

**Taylor´s POV**

I waited until my father was fast-asleep before turning on a lamp besides my bed and locking the door of my room.

There had been too much stuff in my head lately to be able to easily fall asleep, with all that had happened recently.

I had suffered a few intense nightmare-filled nights since the locker.. the day I had thought I was going to die. The moment an unseen and almost inconceivable "thing" together with its "child" had helped and saved me. Not a bystander, a staff member or anyone else.

It kept sounding completely ridiculous the more I thought about it.

Something so freakish and impossible had had to happen just so Emma and her flunkies didn´t end up possibly MURDERING ME!?

That had crossed a line I had never thought about before. There´s no way I can just keep on taking their abuse now. Somehow.. All of it had to end.

.

It had always been hopeless to do anything or fight back, though.

I might have pushed the button to boot up my old computer a bit too hard in my frustration, and then disconnected the dial-up of the phone in order to be able to use the internet. I wiped my face to remove unshed tears from my eyes while it switched on.

True. I don´t think they had actually intended for that to happen, but that still had only been an escalation from what they had been previously doing.. During which I had never stopped accusing them, be it to the principal or the rest of the school staff.

_'They were going to end up going a little too far, eventually. Why didn´t I see it coming? Just.. Why?'_

It had always only resulted in Emma and Sophia getting more vicious and creative.

I couldn´t see myself ever forgiving them. All of them could go fuck themselves.

_'So, for some reason the staff keeps letting them get away with it. Before, I had never been able to understand it.. but now I have powers with which I might figure that out. Maybe. Oh! and possibly even help people and be a hero!'_

The thought calmed me down a little, allowing me to partly swallow my bitterness, and I remembered another thing.

I still haven´t made a decision about the deal Yagan had proposed, even after thinking about it for some time now.

A part of it was because after talking a few times with him it became fairly obvious that he had his own issues, and so it didn´t sit quite right to ask so much from him. There was something about being forced to protect a foster house from gang members in exchange of remaining here and attending school.. Which either wasn´t the whole history or something about it was giving him mixed feelings.

He hadn´t spoken to the authorities about that violation against his rights, but had freely told an almost stranger like myself, after all.

However, I did agree with something he had told me yesterday during recess.

* * *

_._

_"__Sigh" "Since you are here now, I guess those girls are ready to keep harassing you, and not allowing you to eat in peace", I just lowered my eyes when he got it immediately. Recently, the trio had been leaving me alone for the most part, with Sophia acting all sullen and reticent lately, but still Emma and Madison seemed willing to instruct their hanger-ons to keep with this pettiness on their behalf, despite being on detention themselves. I strongly suspected that the Trio would laugh at the slap on the wrist and return to normal soon, anyways._

_I had unintentionally encountered Yagan seated on the floor of the hallway and with his back against the wall, blatantly in front of the closed door of the staff room._

_He looked at me for a moment before continuing, "I know about *clashes of will*, and that you´ll overcome this"._

_"__Here, you can take the pita sandwich and I´ll have the "shawarma" (Arabian foodstuff) I had saved for later." _

_"__You should care more for your health than for whatever others might talk behind your back, about you and me"._

_I took it since I was really hungry and was about to thank him, but ended up startled at what he had said. I noticed a group of students watching us and talking among themselves from further down the corridor, and looked back at him._

_Damn his fast speech. It had caught me off-guard. It wasn´t really like he spoke a lot at once, more like he often tried to stuff details and clarifications in a short timeframe._

_He gestured a little for me to calm down, before continuing with a colder voice, "They had seen us arguing before. The fact they don´t know or understand doesn´t mean they won´t have an opinion, and judge... And try their hardest to meddle if they believe it´s not in whatever interests they have. Seriously, there shouldn´t be any argument as to why one couldn´t speak to anyone one damn well pleases"._

_I smiled wryly at him. Again, he was weirdly oscillating between cynic and just plain naïve, "You know, perhaps there´s an argument related to that one of us agrees with. Maybe I am not comfortable with those rumors"._

_I paused and looked intently at him, "Or with you getting into fights and trouble for me"._

_Yagan swallowed a bite of his lunch before looking down at it, "I will accept your choice, Taylor. I believe that, unlike me, you can obtain any kind of future you´d yearn for.. But you´d need both to survive until then and to learn all you could possibly need"._

_"__If the *system* you live under won´t allow you this, then there is likely to be conflict, and you must apply your own force in order to circumvent it"._

_"__What else could be done, after all?", his cynical smile was like mine, but I thought that he also looked sad._

* * *

.

Yagan certainly doesn´t sound like a kid when he gets going like that.

Mystical weirdly-speaking descendant of whatever Shion was, he was right. I needed to force the staff to stop ignoring what Emma was doing to me.

Additionally, I also had to make up my mind about him. Either everything I had went through alongside the dreamlike experience which had granted me superpowers had been one hundred percent real and Yagan is related to Shion, or he is so fucking crazy it´s not even funny.. and I am right there with him for having hallucinated all of that.

I took a seat and retrieved one of dad´s old flash drives, which I now often used when working on assignments, from a hidden place inside a drawer of my bedside table, and connected it to the computer.

It didn´t actually only contain schoolwork, but also held two password-protected documents. One with all of my cherished notes and research about my possible calling as a cape/parahuman, and the other with my floundering and slow-going investigation about the nature of Shion and the visions I had that day.

Simply put, nothing I could find really matched. There was nothing about anything whatsoever dropping pieces of itself on this city while anyone was looking, or about dream-visits by supernatural and inhuman singers. But nobody would have said anything about those, I certainly wasn´t going to.

Amused, I decided to shelve all about those subjects for a time, and decided to concentrate on my upcoming career as a hero.

I could hardly wait. I was no Alexandria, but my powers seemed to be versatile although I got the feeling they were somewhat difficult to use to their fullest and most of it wasn´t intuitive.

That´s one thing to consider for my schedule. I needed to find an adequate place to test my limits and comprehend more about how my "power" worked. According to PHO forums these abilities were categorized by the PRT in a threat basis, not to be confused with other categorizations which focused on what the "power sets" did themselves.

_'Okay, taking myself as an example: my "power set" seems to be about controlling bugs and some manner of mental ability to detect the presence of living beings near me, though only the exact location of the bugs and not Yagan´s or anything else´s' by means of an additional sense of positioning (propioception)', _By some classifications, that would mean a high? rating in Master since I could control _a lot_ of bugs when holding a certain mindset, and a moderate rating in Thinker since my range of detection seems decent.

_'Oh! but it means that, with the exception of Yagan and only another one who oddly enough always register, nobody could ever sneak up on me anymore as long as I sustained my concentration ',_ delighted, I made some notes and began thinking of ideas for my approach to heroism and helping combat criminals off the streets. I would go out there and forget all about the frustrating bitches at school.

However, by PRT standards bug-control would look pretty low-key and my Thinker power would seem more valuable. Though, I didn´t like the idea of letting anybody know about the shared range of both my powers at all.

_'Hmm. I had better think about joining them later. Some accomplishments would be better to have first, no matter where I choose to end up'. _

A costume and some equipment like zip-ties would be necessary in order to start off for real, so I needed to research more about the cape community and where to get what I would need. The sooner I could do something which mattered the better.

_'Making the costume looks like the most time-consuming part, but it would be essential for hiding my identity and protecting myself. Though bullet-stopping Kevlar vests are sure to be too expensive'._

_'But there was what they said on that documentary a month ago from the Discovery Channel about black widow spiders and their silk... '_

I wasn´t planning to tell him, but I wondered what he would think about this. Strangely, I thought I already knew.

* * *

.

_The Path has been updated. Eighty two steps replaced. One hundred seventeen added_

* * *

**A/N: **This update took a lot of time to come out. I am afraid that until I can finish up with some RL diligences this is going to keep happening, so please be patient. On this chapter Taylor´s power reveals itself as actually being non-canon; since it´s really two distinct abilities with different sources being mutually overlaid. As for Wendy and Yagan´s relationship with Taylor, they have yet to fully come into their role. Though, one thing to remember is that absolutely no one is always in the right or has the more fitting perspective on this story.

This fic is going to greatly divert from canon since there are plenty of angry butterflies, and the challenges Taylor will have to face are bound to be different.


End file.
